Sunday - November 05, 2017

Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition

PC Gamer reports that the Definitive Edition of Pillars of Eternity will be released on November 15:

Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition arrives later this month, includes brand new items

Bundles the base game with previously released DLC.

Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition is coming out on November 15, developer Obsidian Entertainment has announced, and it looks to be a decent deal. For $39.99 you'll get the excellent isometric RPG plus both parts of its beefy expansion, The White March. At the moment, you can buy them combined for slightly cheaper, but that's a time limited deal on Fanatical (the renamed Bundle Stars) that runs out tomorrow.

Also, the Definitive Edition gets you all the extra goodies that were included in the Royal Edition of the game, which includes the original soundtrack, a digital collector's book and a novella set in the Pillars universe.

The edition will also feature some new DLC, called the Deadfire Pack, which is a reference to the upcoming Pillars sequel. It includes a few in-game items and portraits.[...]

Wednesday - June 21, 2017

Pillars of Eternity - Comes to Consoles

Pillars of Eternity will become available for PS4 and Xbox One as a Complete Edition on August 29, 2017.

Paradox Interactive Bringing Pillars of Eternity and Cities: Skylines to PS4 and Xbox One

Best-Selling, Award-Winning Games Launching on Consoles This August

STOCKHOLM - June 21, 2017 - Paradox Interactive, a publisher of best-selling games across many genres and platforms, today announced that Pillars of Eternity, the critically acclaimed role-playing game (RPG) from Obsidian Entertainment, and Cities: Skylines, the smash-hit city-building game from Colossal Order, will both be released for new console platforms later this year. Both award-winning titles have been redesigned for console players with controller-friendly gameplay and UI, and will be available in August for their respective platforms.

Pillars of Eternity, originally the result of a crowdfunding campaign by over 75,000 backers, first released for PC platforms to broad critical acclaim, winning several awards for its rich story and deep, original world. Now, the original game, alongside the expansions The White March - Parts I & II, will be released as Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition for the PlayStation®4 and Xbox One consoles on August 29, 2017.

Rediscover the world of Eora in the debut trailer for Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition:

Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition features:

Award-winning writing, story and artwork of Pillars of Eternity, along with the expanded world and content of The White March: Parts I & II

Countless character creation options, from races and classes to character backgrounds which drive your personal story

An epic universe to explore, filled with intriguing party members and companions, a variety of in-game factions, and a lovingly rendered world to traverse

New UI and controls designed from the ground up, presenting the Pillars of Eternity experience like never before

Monday - June 19, 2017

Pillars of Eternity - Too Many Words

Jeff Vogel explains why he feels that game designers don't always edit there text in such a way that all words actually matter to the player. As an example he uses Pillars of Eternity.

Pillars of Eternity wants to have a really elaborate world and story, which is fine. It wants to have a creative game system, with new, innovative sorts of character classes and spells, which is great.

However, it doesn't do a good job of communicating stuff to the player, because there's no editing and care in giving out information. The game just floods the player with text, important bits buried in gushes of irrelevant detail, practically training the player to think that the words aren't really important. (Again, I played a huge chunk of the game without reading anything but the quest log.)

To illustrate this, I'm going to go, step by step, through the introduction and character creation, the stuff anyone who tries the game is sure to see. Let's see what the game thinks is worth the player's time and how good a job it does splitting up vital knowledge from static.

"So What? You're Just Scared of Words, You Sub-Literate?"

No, I have a problem with the pacing. The human brain can only absorb so many random facts about game systems and lore at one sitting. This stuff needs to be carefully paced out, or it'll just slide off of the brain.

But character creation in this game floods the player with tons of facts, both about the game and the world. I came out of it feeling numb and confused, and almost none of it stuck.

So. You start the game. You pick your difficulty. And then you begin the eleven (!!!) steps of character creation.

Wednesday - June 07, 2017

Pillars of Eternity - Review @ Angry Duck Gamer

Review: Pillars of Eternity

Every oldschool RPG fan was crazy about Pillars of Eternity before its release. The so called RPG Revival was at its most awaited moment: the release of Baldur’s Gate’s spiritual sequel. The BG series was considered by many the pinnacle of the CRPGs and an artifact of a long lost age. But all that was about to change… or not.

I’ll be blunt, Pillars of Eternity is not a good spiritual sequel for Baldur’s Gate 2. While it’s not a terrible game, it’s far away from being great and the Kickstarter promises and the marketing made the disappointment even worse. Obsidian developed awesome games like Fallout: New Vegas, so it was somewhat disappointing to play this lackluster game.

While PoE is still loved by many gamers, its story is not really that good (although it clearly shows glimpses of true greatness) and the game design is pretty terrible in some aspects. The major one being…

The patch also includes Chris Avellone's novella for the title, which is called The House of Wael and comes in both e-book and audiobook form. I haven't had the chance to start reading it yet, but it was a long time coming, and questions about its release were frequent on both Obsidian's boards and Chris Avellone's twitter account. Hopefully it will be satisfying for those who have been looking forward to it since the Kickstarter campaign, all the way back in 2012.

Thursday - March 24, 2016

Pillars of Eternity - GDC, Patch and Tyranny

by Myrthos, 00:03

In a Kickstarter update for Pillars of Eternity, Brandon Adler talks about the Patch Update 3.0.2.

Today is the release of our latest game Update, 3.02. It is currently live on Steam and will be up on GoG and Origin within a day. This Update contains hundreds of great fixes and, if you haven't played Pillars in a while, it's a great time to jump back in.

Here are some of the major fixes:

Fixed an issue where some player's game would reset after completing The White March - Part I.

Fixed an issue where some players couldn't activate the White Forge or enter Durgan's Battery.

Fixed an issue with the final Eyeless Scripted Interaction becoming stuck if you selected yourself.

Fixed an issue where some players would get stuck at the Caed Nua End Slide.

Fixed multiple issues where some players received black screens on load/transitioning.

For the full notes please head over to the Obsidian Forums and check them out.

Josh Sawyer talked at GDC:

Last week our Game Director, Josh Sawyer, gave a talk about attributes in Pillars of Eternity. The talk, Gods and Dumps: Attribute Tuning in Pillars of Eternity, gave an in depth look into the history of attributes in RPGs and how that history guided our decisions in Pillars of Eternity. If you are interested in Pillars and the systems of the game, you shouldn't miss it.

If you would like to see the slides from the talk you can get them here (PDF Warning).

Monday - March 14, 2016

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ MMORPG

The RPG Files: Interview - Josh Sawyer on Wrapping Up Pillars of Eternity

Obsidian Entertainment has staked a claim on the CRPG genre in the last year. With Pillars of Eternity, the studio returned to their roots, abandoning the sprawling 3D open worlds of Fallout: New Vegas and the pop culture satire of South Park: The Stick of Truth for isometric cameras, dice rolls, and one of the best interactive stories this side of the open world. Now that the last expansion, The White March Part Two, has hit digital shelves, we sat down with Director and Design Lead, Josh Sawyer to look back on the game.

MMORPG:Hi Josh! Thank you for chatting with me today. What’s the atmosphere like in the studio with The White March Part Two has finally released?

Josh:It's hard to believe it's been almost three and a half years since we launched the Kickstarter for Project Eternity, but it's been a fantastic experience. All games have their development challenges, but with Pillars of Eternity, we really felt like it was up to us to prove ourselves to the fans and backers. We're very happy with how the core game and expansions turned out, but of course we have a lot of ideas for improvements in the future.

MMORPG: How is the game doing, saleswise, now that it is out in the wild?

Josh:I don't think we have exact figures for the second part of the expansion, but the release of The White March, Part II the midweek Steam sale bumped Pillars back into the Steam best sellers list again. We can't complain about that.

Saturday - February 06, 2016

Pillars of Eternity - GOTY Edition Revealed

by Aubrielle, 01:31

We might be getting a Game of the Year edition of Pillars of Eternity sooner than we thought. According to Paradox and Obsidian, it'll roll out after The White March: Part II.

In addition to releasing the "Update 3.0 New Features" video today, Paradox Interactive and Obsidian Entertainment sent over a press release touting the main features of The White March Part II, while also alerting us to the fact that a Pillars of Eternity Game of the Year Edition is set to be released later this month. The aforementioned link will take you to the the product page on Amazon Germany with a release date of February 19th, but I have to assume that we'll see the compilation pack - packing the core game, both expansions, and an 80-page manual - going live with shifting release dates around the world tomorrow:

New Features Coming to Pillars of Eternity for All Players

New Enhancements to Pillars of Eternity Arriving with The White March - Part 2 for Every Owner of Pillars of Eternity

IRVINE, Calif. and STOCKHOLM - Feb. 4, 2016 — Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive today revealed several forthcoming updates to Pillars of Eternity, the award-winning title backed by dedicated fans of classic role-playing games (RPGs). Later this month, alongside the release of the game’s second expansion, The White March – Part 2, Obsidian will make new updates to the gameplay and features of Pillars of Eternity available for all players. These updates will include a streamlined combat UI, updates to the in-game Stronghold and portions of the game world, a new “Story Time” game mode, and improvements to a broad variety of in-game features such as knockout injuries that change the difficulty during combat. Version “3.0” of the game will arrive as a free update to all players of Pillars of Eternity on February 16, 2016, the same day as the release of The White March – Part 2.

With the forthcoming release of the update and expansion, Obsidian and Paradox bring the exciting first chapter of Pillars of Eternity to a close. "We're committed to expanding and supporting the Pillars of Eternity experience. We have many stories to tell in this world and this has only been the first one," said Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart. Gamers who have been waiting for the complete Pillars of Eternity story can now experience the incredible narrative from start to finish, up to and including the exciting conclusion to the story of The White March.

Pillars of Eternity, created by veterans also known for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Fallout: New Vegas, and South Park: The Stick of Truth, is an RPG inspired by classic titles such as Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. Created thanks to over 75,000 crowdfunding backers, Pillars of Eternity has sold over 700,000 units, was released to critical acclaim in March 2015, and is among Metacritic’s 15 Best PC Games of 2015.

For more information on Pillars of Eternity and The White March – Part 2, visit http://pillarsofeternity.com/.

Friday - January 22, 2016

Pillars of Eternity - Beta 3.0 and Translations

by Myrthos, 12:14

A new beta for Pillars of Eternity has been made avaiable on Steam in preparation for the launch of The White March - Part II.

The 3.0 Update comes with a ton of changes, bug fixes, and new features. We need your help in looking over everything to make sure that the community is happy with the direction of some of these changes. If you are able, we would really appreciate that you opt into the Beta patch and supply feedback in our forums. As always, you guys are what helps to make Pillars of Eternity the best game it can be.

Here is a small list of features and changes that we would like feedback on:

The value/feeling of Athletics and Survival, both on their own and relative to other skills. Do any of the Survival bonuses feel way out of line with the other bonuses?

How do Knockout Injuries feel? Are they too punishing? Not punishing enough? Do any injuries feel way out of line with other injuries?

Assuming you like the idea of Story Time, how does it feel to you? Does it make the game more enjoyable for you, or does it just remove combat as an obstacle that you didn't like in the first place?

Do you like the new Stronghold Adventures? Do you like the narrative elements of them? How do the unique items you get from them feel? Do any of the unique items seem out of line with other items considering their relative difficulty level (i.e., comparing Minor to Minor, Grand to Grand)?

Do you like the presentation and content of the Stronghold Visitor Dilemmas? How do you feel about the setup of the scenes? Are there any dilemmas that you don't like? Do you feel like the dilemmas all give you a good range of options for resolving them?

Does the combat in the last third of the main game (from Elmshore on) feel better? Specifically, have we removed enough battles that feel like trash mobs or filler? Have we improved the fights there so they are a) challenging and b) more interesting?

The same question, but on levels 7, 8, and 11 of the Endless Paths of Od Nua.

For a more in-depth look at some of the changes and fixes, head over here and check it out.

In addition the localization builder modding tool is discussed, which allows modders to translate the game in currently not supported langauges.

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And there are these notes:

Note: The Localization Builder requires a legitimate copy of Excel to work correctly. If you use a pirated version it may not work properly.

Note: It is also for Windows only. We have no plans on making OSX or Linux versions for the future.

Saturday - December 26, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Spirit of the PC Award

by Aubrielle, 00:46

PC Gamer may not be a popular name around here, but they've given Kickstarter poster child Pillars of Eternity their "Spirit of the PC Award" for 2015.

Pillars of Eternity wins our 2015 Spirit of the PC award, which celebrates games that capture something fantastic about the PC platform, whether historical or modern. We'll be posting the rest of our awards and personal picks daily as we approach the end of the year, which we're collecting on our main GOTY page.

Andy Kelly: Steeped in RPG history—from Baldur’s Gate to Planescape: Torment—Pillars of Eternity takes the best of those old Infinity Engine games and gives it a modern sheen. With beautifully descriptive writing and brilliantly fun, tactical combat, this is one of the best PC role-players in years. The way your party’s skills complement each other makes battles a genuine thrill as yous stack and combine their abilities to cleverly outsmart the challenging enemies. And the world Obsidian have created gives the usual high fantasy tropes a dark edge, and it feels like it could have been based on some forgotten D&D campaign.

Tom Senior: Pillars could so easily have been a nostalgia trip that simply copied the Infinity Engine games of old. Instead, it improves them. Combat breaks away from the conventions of Dungeons & Dragons, allowing for clever new class concepts like the Cipher, who can manipulate the souls of enemies. It’s smartly written, too, using little text adventure skits to add flavour and detail that the elevated camera would otherwise be unable to show. Kickstarter backers are immortalised as NPCs, and each has a short story that you can read using your character’s rare psychic powers. It’s a fun reward for those loyal enough to fund the project, but it also makes the world feel rich and full of character.

It only works on PC, where players are able to read a lot of text up-close on a high-resolution screen. Pillars is part RPG, part fantasy novel. The choice to have characters voice only a line or two from each speech allows for more detailed exchanges, bolstered by descriptive interludes that pluck at the imagination. The result is a long, absorbing RPG that recognises the heritage of the great Infinity Engine RPGs without being subsumed by them.

Chris Thursten: Like going home at Christmas to discover that somebody has prepared all of your favourite food for days, the movies you watched as a kid are on and somebody’s unearthed a bunch of dog-eared fantasy paperbacks from your past. And a bottle of whisky. I want to curl up inside Pillars of Eternity and live there.

Wednesday - December 23, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Story Time Mode

Josh Sawyer's Tumblr contains his plans for Pillars of Eternity's upcoming Story Time mode.

supermonkeytimeforce asked: Any details available on what Story Time mode will entail? I'm pretty excited because I love the world and characters of PoE, but I am miserably bad at the combat.

Story Time uses the encounter composition of Normal difficulty but biases the math heavily in the player’s favor. Enemies have lower stats overall. Party members Crit more often, especially when enemies are at low Endurance. Enemies have increased Recovery (attack less frequently), crit far less, have inaccurate Disengagement Attacks, do less damage overall, and do much less damage against party members who are at low Endurance. Hostile status effects on party members are reduced in duration. The party can also carry (effectively) unlimited Camping Supplies.

Tuesday - December 22, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Road to Eternity

The Road to Eternity is a documentary about Obsidian Entertainment and the making of the epic RPG Pillars of Eternity.

Follow Obsidian Entertainment's journey as they develop Pillars of Eternity, the Kickstarter-funded hit that helped propel the company out of dire straits.

Watch as developers such as Josh Sawyer (Game Director), Adam Brennecke (Executive Producer and Lead Programmer), and Feargus Urquhart (CEO) pull back the curtain on the Pillars of Eternity development and show you the highs and lows of creating a highly anticipated game.

Tuesday - December 15, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Best RPG 2015 @ RPS

Adam: Last year, Divinity: Original Sin brought me back into the RPG fold. I play loads of games that are somewhere within the genre but it had been a long time since a studio released an RPG that seemed to be tailored to my personal tastes, and that was built on the kind of systemic design that I enjoy in every genre.

Pillars of Eternity was always going to have a harder time earning my love. While I’ve played and enjoyed the Infinity engine RPGs that are a rich part of its heritage – most notably the two Baldur’s Gate games – but they’re games that I’ve always appreciated rather than adored. Where Divinity was built on systems and mechanics that relied on computer simulation, keeping track of hundreds of variables within the world and creating unexpected interactions as elements and play-driven events overlapped, Pillars appeared to be much more focused on the creation of a pen and paper style roleplaying system, and a world to fit snugly around that system.

I thought I’d play for a few hours, nod appreciatively, then head for fresh pastures. Instead, Obsidian’s latest owned my evenings for weeks after release.

Thursday - November 19, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview with Josh Sawyer

by Myrthos, 12:46

Ragequit talks to Josh Sawyer about Pillars of Eternity and other Obsidian games.

RQ: Now that Pillars has been out for a respectable amount of time, do you have any "regrets" about it, design or content-wise? Is there anything you now wish you could have added/removed or changed in it before its release?

JS: The stronghold never really got the content it needed to make it feel worthwhile or important. During development we realized that if we had someone focusing on stronghold content, it would jeopardize other quests that we felt were more valuable. That's why the stronghold wound up being system-heavy and content-light. It's something we're trying to address with our 3.0 patch, which will be available when The White March, Part II, goes live.

Not all of the companions were tightly connected to the storyline. The companion I wrote, Pallegina, is one of the most disconnected. I think their connection to the central plot could have been stronger and there could have been better reactivity among them to both your choices and each other's' actions.

In the early game, it was very difficult to communicate all of the ideas that form the hook for your character's motivation. I think trying to communicate more cleanly or focusing more on the difficult concepts (in particular, the negative aspects of being a Watcher) would have drawn people in more easily.

Friday - October 30, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Updates and White March II

In A Kickstarter update for Pillars of Eternity we learn more about The Small Harvest, Pupkinhead mode, short stories, artwork for The White March part II ad update 2.03.

The team has been hard at work continuing to fix bugs and add polish to Pillars of Eternity and The White March.

Our latest update has many fixes, some cool new changes to the fighter, and we have even added some new key bindings to help support the Steam controller. The update is now live on Steam and will go out on GOG and Origin sometime today or tomorrow.

Here are some of the changes:

Steam Controller

Pillars of Eternity now has support for the Steam controller. The official controller settings are now the default settings.

There is a suggested configuration that can be found on the templates that are accessed in Steam's big screen mode.

New key bindings have been added to support additional actions needed for the Steam controller control schemes.

Saturday - October 24, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Surpasses 500,000 Units in Worldwide Sales

Pillars of Eternity Surpasses 500,000 Units in Worldwide Sales!

Pillars of Eternity has sold over 500,000 units worldwide! It's a big day for Pillars of Eternity and the fans that helped make it possible! From all of us on the Pillars team to all of you who have enjoyed the game: THANK YOU!

From our beloved CEO, Feargus Urquhart, "Pillars of Eternity has been a life-changing experience for me, and for everyone involved in its creation. Knowing that over half a million people have gotten to share in that is both flattering and humbling. I want to deeply thank all of our fans and supporters. We can't wait to share what we've got next for the world of Eora!"

Sunday - October 18, 2015

How Pillars of Eternity found widespread success by embracing its niche appeal

Pillars of Eternity is not a game designed explicitly to attract a wide audience. At a time when it sometimes seems like an undue imposition to unmute a Facebook video or expand a Tweet, Pillars makes you read long passages of descriptive text and written dialogue in order to digest its world and unlock its treasures.

Hungry for more spells and dragon-slaying? Seek out our list of the best PC RPGs.

It’s also very difficult, frequently and spiritedly cutting you and your party down for a) failing to pause and plan an imminent fight, b) failing to find the right balance of classes in your party, or c) failing to equip your perfectly-balanced party with suitable abilities and equipment.

And why does it make such reaching demands of its players? Why, to evoke and homage a cluster of isometric RPGs released between fifteen and twenty years ago, of course. Now – hands up who thinks that sounds like a game destined for an estimated Steam audience of over half a million players?

Obviously, Pillars found that audience. Not in spite of those idiosyncrasies, but because of them. Viewed through the gamer’s eyes it seems almost a no-brainer for veterans of Obsidian and Black Isle Studios to come together and launch a Kickstarter for a new Infinity Engine-inspired RPG. But if you’re the creator about to put your livelihood on the line, as Obsidian cofounder Josh Sawyer was in September 2012, you don’t take anything for granted.

Tuesday - September 29, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Update 2.0.2 is Live

by Myrthos, 12:24

Update 2.0.2 has been made available for The Pillars of Eternity and The White March part I.

Hey, everyone. The Eternity team is currently hard at work on the second part of The White March, but that doesn't mean we don't have time for updates and fixes for Pillars of Eternity and the first part of The White March! In this backer update we will share some of the fixes that have gone into 2.02, show off some cool swag, and let you know about some novels by a couple Obsidianites. In future updates we will discuss some of the things we are doing for the second part of The White March.

Update 2.02

Not only does Update 2.02 introduce some important fixes for the game, but we have even added in GOG Galaxy achievement support for you achievement hunters.

The update is currently live on Steam and will be live on Origin and GOG within a day or two.

Check out some of the changes below:

Major Fixes

GOG Galaxy achievements now work.

A party member using a movement speed modifying item now should walk at the same speed as the rest of the party outside of combat.

Added more optimizations for save and load.

Fixed an issue where some players were not able to talk to the Steward of Caed Nua to start The White March quest lines.

Fixed issues with Respec not working correctly with some edge case abilities and talents.

Fixed some problems that were being reported with self-targeting abilities (Like Frenzy).

Fixed problems with chanters not being able to set their chants properly after they have retrained.

Abilities

All Summoned weapons are now considered universal weapon type.

Fixed a number of issues with Nature's Bounty.

Items

Soulbound weapons are properly unbound when the bound soul dies.

Fixed issue where weapon switching recovery could go negative.

Draining Item Mod should only drain 15% attack speed now.

Shadowflame from Ninguath's Grimiore is now 4th level.

Removed enchantment cost of the Cumbersome item mod.

Lowered the enchantment cost for Spellstriking Confuse and Spellstriking Thrust of Tattered Veil.

Quests

Small Balance changes to the Alpine and Sky Dragon attacks.

Fixed a number of issues with the Devil of Caroc's reactivity in the soul awakening quest.

The Hunter's Favor should properly resolve if Thyrsc and Suldrun are killed before completion.

Stronghold attacks can now happen if the player level is over 13.

Caroc and Zahua now have a place in the stronghold.

Alpine Dragon is now set to never gib.

Vamrel's conversation will only fire once now.

Miscellaneous Notes

Quick items on the ability bar are now sorted by slot.

Afflictions display like other status effects on the party bar.

Fix a number of hotkey binding issues and bugs.

Accuracy for Bestiary entries now account for stances and shields.

Fixed a problem with Accuracy being reported incorrectly until the party enters combat.

Friday - September 04, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - What's Next? @ PC Gamer

I don't think it was worthwhile developing for Linux," Brandon Adler, lead producer said in response to questions the team had gathered from Twitter before the show. "They are a very, very small portion of our active user base—I think around one and a half percent of our users were Linux.

Prior to doing Pillars, every time we worked on a game it was always something that belonged to someone else.

Eventually, as they set their sights further into the future, the obvious question of a sequel was brought up. "We're very interested in a sequel," Brennecke said. "We own something now and that is huge for us. For an indie developer, to have your own thing—it's fantastic. We can make a sequel and we don't even have to go to a publisher; we hold all the cards now."

"I think it's changed people's ideas inside the studio about what types of games we can make," Sawyer said. "Prior to doing Pillars [of Eternity], every time we worked on a game it was always something that belonged to someone else because publishers do not want you to retain the rights to those things, so it's also changed our internal thought processes about the sorts of games that we can work on."

Wednesday - July 15, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Review #4 @ RPGCodex

by Hiddenx, 19:06

The Codex can't get enough of Pillars of Eternity. This time old Watcher Prime Junta has reviewed the game:

The big-picture similarities between Pillars and the IE games are obvious, and many featured already in the Kickstarter pitch. Top-down isometric camera. Six-member party. Real-time-with-pause combat. Class- and attribute-based character system. Swords and sorcery. Elves and dwarves. Dragons and dungeons. Looks that take you straight back to Icewind Dale or Baldur’s Gate 2. Pillars also has the feel of selecting and commanding units down well. Selecting a unit or a group, moving, rotating a formation, or picking a target has the same crispness and feel of immediate feedback as in the originals. The user interface has a number of small but subtle improvements, such as better support for quick keys and the ability to shift-queue commands. Switching between Baldur's Gate 2 and Pillars is almost seamless. The characters respond instantly, and there's the same pleasurable and "connected" feeling of direct control. This is where the game succeeds best, and it accounts for a lot of the praise it has received. [...]

The Infinity Engine games made great use of one of D&D’s best features: magic. By the time BioWare began making its games, the ruleset had been played for over 20 years, and it was massive, flexible and polished. It offered plenty of tools, from opening locked doors to protecting yourself against the petrifying gaze of a basilisk, to sequencers releasing a number of spells at once, or preparing contingency spells that automatically fire off others in specific situations. It is not without its flaws, however. It is extremely limited at low levels, and tends towards instant-win or instant-lose effects in the mid levels. It has a quite a lot of spells which are as good as useless, and only really hits its stride at late mid to high levels, when you have a significant amount of spellcasting oomph available, both in range and quantity. That’s when the famous ‘mage duels’ start. The growth curve of Pillars magic is the opposite. It is highly useful and has a lot of variety straight out of the gate. Where Baldur’s Gate mages would rack up a few dozen misses with a sling on an average day, Pillars’ level 1 casters are already full participants in encounters. By the time IE game magic would start to really hit its stride, towards the end of Pillars, underlying weaknesses start to emerge, and it never develops the depth and emergent complexity of a Baldur's Gate 2. There are four main causes for this: the core resolution mechanic, status effect impact and duration, the inability of the AI to exploit the synergies in the system, and limited counters. [...]

Even with its flaws, Pillars of Eternity is a remarkable game. It was made in a short time with limited resources, yet it is as big, sprawling, complex, and detailed as the games it references. The world is deep, fully-realised, and more believable than Forgotten Realms or most other swords-and-sorcery settings. The gameplay is rich and varied, with massive scope for experimentation and creativity, and if you crank it up to Path of the Damned, challenging enough to keep you on your toes for most of the ride. The writing is up to Obsidian's usually high standard. And there's a lot of it: masses of quests, monsters, maps, dialogues, items, abilities, and much more.

Baldur's Gate would likely have been forgotten had it not been for Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment. If Obsidian can build on Pillars' success, improve on the areas that need improvement while maintaining its strengths, Path of the Damned can point the way to Path of the Incline. Pillars is a first, somewhat faltering step to reviving a near-stagnant genre. A few years ago, the very idea of a Baldur’s Gate 2-scope, top-down, isometric, party-based cRPG from a major studio seemed like a pipe dream. Whether this new flowering can survive between the siren song of a mass market and the grumbling of the grognards — let alone come close to making both groups happy — hangs on the followup. For some of us, Pillars delivered. Others are still waiting. The space it and the other big-ticket Kickstarters has helped clear benefits us all.

Thursday - July 09, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - How Kickstarter Saved Obsidian @ Kotaku

In 2012, Obsidian Entertainment almost fell apart. The independent game studio had just suffered a major blow—the cancellation of a big-budget role-playing game they were developing with Microsoft—and they were struggling to make ends meet in the midst of an uncertain, transitional gaming industry.

Josh Sawyer, one of the company’s public faces and the veteran game designer who directed Fallout: New Vegas, suggested they launch a Kickstarter. With crowdfunding, he argued, they could make the one game they all wanted to make—an isometric fantasy RPG—without having to give up creative control to an outside investor or publisher. On top of that, they could own what they made—no longer would they be shackled to a big corporation’s license, like they were with New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, and all of the other RPGs they’d developed since first forming in 2004.

The idea was compelling to some at Obsidian—including a few other staffers who had independently suggested or thought the same thing—but some of the higher-ups disagreed, Sawyer told me. Some were skeptical that they’d even be able to raise over $100,000, let alone hit any sort of reasonable budget for a modern video game. [...]

Thursday - June 25, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Update 2.0

by Myrthos, 12:26

The 99th Kickstarter update for Pillars of Eternity brings us the somewhat belated announcement of The White March, Part 1, consisting of the two new companions and the 2.0 updates (which will be vailable to all).

Pillars of Eternity - Review#3 @ RPG Codex

It’s a better Baldur’s Gate, with more depth and role-playing that goes beyond playing dress up. Still, it’s Baldur’s Gate, not Torment, Fallout, or even Mask of the Betrayer. Presented with the first and possibly the last Great Opportunity to do something memorable, Obsidian did what they’ve always done – played it safe and went after the BG fans, long abandoned by Bioware. (...)

Pillars of Eternity stays true to the spirit of Baldur’s Gate, which is a nice way of saying that it’s a combat heavy game with crappy combat but pretty backgrounds. I’m happy to report that the backgrounds are spectacular and the combat is every bit as crappy as you remember. (...)

The system's "flatness" is also its greatest weakness, however. The version of D&D that Sawyer is trying to emulate here is its 4th Edition. This system compromised on the fundamental difference in feel between classes to instead use uniformity and universal rules to provide balance instead: while some builds were better than others, all builds were useful. In contrast, earlier editions of D&D have classes which are so underpowered compared to others that comparisons are meaningless. In many ways, PoE completely succeeds in the objective to shed itself of this problem, but it comes at a price: you consistently feel that the changes you make to the characters are fairly miniscule. A huge part of this is thanks to the universality of the abilities the character system bestows upon you. Because most of your abilities continue to be relevant throughout the game, you are rarely that excited to gain new abilities and spells. You might be exited to get access to a new level of Cipher spells for example, since some of these are certainly a step up in power compared to your earlier abilities, but you have no reason to care when you gain further Cipher spells from that same level. Since the Mass Charm that worked so well for you in the last 20 encounters will work equally as well in the next 20, switching tactics is, for the vast majority of encounters, reduced to a matter of style. In dire cases, even gaining access to high levels of spells will yield no excitement, as you sometimes completely disregard newly learned abilities in favor of spamming that Level 2 AoE immobilize you’ve grown so fond of. In other words: you could switch from the aforementioned Mass Charm to a damaging AoE spell and knockdown... but why would you want to? (...)

Friday - June 12, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview with Josh Sawyer @ HardBloxx

Thomas: I really must praise your work on the new companions. Do you think, that characters like Edér, Aloth, Kana or Durance have a chance to become iconic characters like Minsc (and Boo), the Nameless One or Xan in the future? In this respect, what happened to Cadegund, Forton, etc.?Josh: We certainly hope some of these characters are popular enough to endure the test of time (and make appearances in future games). A fantasy setting is about its characters as much as it’s about the history and lore. Even if we move to new locations, recurring characters can give players a sense of continuity to the world and their story in it.The initial lineup of companions was something that I put together early on during the Kickstarter process. Once we got into development, the writers wanted to prioritize different characters, so Cadegund and Forton were dropped. None of the characters were well-defined that early in development, so it’s not like a bunch of material had already been created for them. It’s possible they could appear in the future.

Thomas: Could you spare a few details about the expansion to our readers? Will the expansion be integrated into the game like “Durlag’s Tower“ during the original “Baldur’s Gate”? Will players visit new, maybe exotic, locations? Are we going to see Fleetbreaker Castle? How far is the development of the expansion?Josh: You’ll certainly be visiting new locations. Part of the appeal in an expansion like this is to travel somewhere outside of the base game. We’ll also be raising the level cap and adding new items, abilities, and talents. The development is going well. The environments, in particular, are really beautiful.

Wednesday - June 03, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - 1.06 Patch Notes

by Myrthos, 12:06

Here is the long list of patch notes for version 1.06 of Pillars of Eternity.

Update 1.06 is up on Steam and will be released on GOG and Origin shortly. This update contains lots of great fixes and some cool paladin balance changes. It also contains two major fixes that Unity just released:

Fixed a crash that some people were experiencing on startup. This had to do with Unity attempting to load a corrupted font.

Fixed severe slowdowns when streaming in assets if the user had specific network adaptors or was running programs like Hamachi.

Take a look below for all the details:

Balance

Blacsonn was modified to have a focus gain multiplier (+20%) instead of a flat gain.

Added the Flanking and Engagement entries to the Glossary. Also updated the Flanked entry to link to Flanking and Engagement.

Minoletta's Concussive Missiles AoE is now set to foe only.

Lay on Hands increased from 1/Encounter to 2/Encounter. Base healing value was increased from 20 per tick to 25 per tick and Greater Lay on Hands increased from +7 to +12.

Flames of Devotion was given a +20 Accuracy bonus.

Spell Holding: Blessing Accuracy bonus reduced from +10 to +5.

All Zealous auras set to the same size. This decreased the size of Charge, but increased the sized of Focus and Endurance.

Items, Spells, Abilities

Quests and Companions

Fixed an issue where a door in the Stronghold's Great Hall could become locked after the Steward unlocked it. This is a retroactive fix that should fix a saved game on load.

Fix for Against the Grain where you were able to convince Trumbel after convincing Sweynur. Players in broken states can speak with Trumbel to complete the quest.

Entering Lle a Rhemen will now force an update to The Bronze Beneath the Lake to the proper step if it's somehow been reverted to an earlier stage, allowing the Engwithan weapon container to appear.

Fix for cases where hurting a Crucible Knight during the Forge Knight attack on Crucible Keep would cause Lady Webb to assume you had burned the bridges with the knights' faction, thus forcing the invite to the hearings to come from Dunryd Row. This fix is also retroactive for cases where Lady Webb still waits to hear your word about getting an invite - head over Hadret House and speak with Webb to continue with the Crucible Knight's support as intended in your playthrough.

Attacking any main faction after acquiring their invite will now properly result in a quest update that asks you to talk to Webb about getting an invite in some other fashion (Dunryd Row support).

UI

Added the correct icons for items that were displaying an incorrect icon.

Fixed a minor issue with Scripted Interaction images not animating correctly at times.

When dragging items in the inventory, you can now see their stack counts.

UI fix made for some localizations that were seeing text flow over their button's bounds.

Highlight shader will now properly render behind objects in the scene.

Added notifications on skill level up that lets users know that skill points may be saved for subsequent levels.

Spell bars now clear out correctly when users switch party members with hotkeys.

Fixed a bug where the second line of an object could get covered by newly gained objectives.

Fixed a UI issue where icons on an expanded spell bar could show blue or gold glows behind them.

Added notification when a player attempts to target a spell or attack when Paralyzed or Stunned.

Reordered spells and abilities on the character sheet UI. This was a fix to abilities being displayed under the spells category.

Fixed a bug where placeholder icons might appear in combat tooltips.

Suppressed effects on the party portrait icons now show their effects with a "suppressed" qualifier on tooltip.

Added a "per X sec" clause to beam spell descriptions to indicate how often they hit.

Transition icons will now revert to their non-glowing state if you attempt to transition, but click away before completing the transition.

Stronghold upgrade "purchase" buttons are now greyed out when another upgrade is already in progress.

General Fixes

Fixed a crash that some people were experiencing on startup. This had to do with Unity attempting to load a corrupted font.

Fixed slowdowns that could be caused by certain network adaptors or programs like Hamachi.

Fixed a problem where interacting with the ability bar in certain ways could disable mouse input.

Tuesday - June 02, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Review @ RPG Codex

by Aries100, 19:01

RPGcodex's Decado has written a positive review of this game. A quote from the beginning:

Pillars of Eternity (PoE) is very much a calculation based on nostalgia, in many ways a manipulative shot to the pleasure center of the CRPG nerd's brain, but carefully curated to be approachable by a larger audience. I don't know how successful the latter has been, and unless Obsidian is willing to release sales numbers I don't know that we'll ever find out.

A quote on the story and writing:

RPG veterans will likely find the main story a bit flavorless. I was disappointed here because while there are tinges of "Chosen One" nonsense in the beginning of the game that go in a slightly different direction than you might expect, it ends up being a rather banal climax. It is interesting that you are not the only Watcher, that being a Watcher is a phenomenon that exists in the world apart from you, but it is still a bit too "special" to shake off the trope entirely.......Except for some blandness in the main narrative, and the occasional over-reliance on adjectives and info dumps, this is solid writing and certainly better than what you get in most modern games.

A quote from the conclusion:

[.....]overall we're talking about a pretty damned good game that, were there no attachment to the IE legacy, would still easily stand on its own. This is the irony of creating art based on nostalgia, at least as far as I can tell. It is easier to get started, but the stakes are higher. You can't just copy what came before, because that is lazy and cheap. But neither can you deviate from the core formula, because pretty soon you're talking about a "different" game.

Friday - May 29, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Card Game

by Myrthos, 12:00

The Pillars of Eternity brand is branching into the world of card games by means of a new Kickstarter. The card game is named Lords of the Eastern Reach

Lords of the Eastern Reach is a strategic card game of adventure and empire building based on Pillars of Eternity. You must protect and build a city. Hire heroes and troops for defense or to delve into dangerous dungeons for loot and glory. Build towers, blacksmiths and other buildings to gain the advantage and go for the win.

The game is designed for 2-4 players and takes about 20-30 minutes per player. This gives the game a substantial feel while still being able to fit a game in on a work night.

Turns are very interactive, with players being able to perform actions like building and hiring on other players' turns. No more sitting around waiting for your turn to come up!

They already reached their goal of $30K on the first day. As we don't really follow card games, don't expect to see many updates here on this.

Thursday - May 14, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - GameBanshee review

For me, the best part of the campaign is the world where it takes place, including the factions of the people, the places where they live, and the gods who govern them. A lot of work went into breathing life into these areas. You don't just learn names of regions and dates of wars. You come to understand the motivations and personalities of the people of involved. And so, for example, the War of the Black Trees isn't just a meaningless war in the history of the region. It's an example of why the Glanfathans don't get along with their neighbors, and why sometimes they shoot first and ask questions later. I liked the design of the world a lot, and I think that it has enough potential that it could easily support more campaigns if Obsidian wants to stick with it.

Unfortunately, I'm not as enthusiastic about the campaign itself. The story behind it is well written, and it has nuances and layers, but it's also a little highbrow, and it could have used some more visceral appeal. For example, your main character learns that there are bad things going on, but nothing really links you to them or motivates you to correct them. You don't encounter anybody who can give a face to the "hollowborn" problem. The closest you come is when you meet a local lord who has a pregnant wife -- and who has started executing any healer or magician who can't find a cure. But for this case you're only motivated to deal with the lord, not the underlying problem.

Saturday - May 09, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - New Patch 1.05 Released

Obsidian has updated their Kickstarter page revealing that they have just released patch 1.05 for this game. A quote about the patch:

This is a big one. Patch 1.05 features hundreds of bug fixes, balance changes, and new UI features. There are many minor fixes that are not listed in these notes.

And a quote about the new features:

You can now rename save games.You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.New Stash sorting. You can now sort stash by item type, enchant score, and sell value.Added a Latest News feature on the main menu to keep you informed on patches and Kickstarter updates.Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.Added a new hotkey for switching weapon sets on selected characters.You can now bind extra mouse buttons to Ability hotkeys.There's a new option to reset newly recruited companions to level 1 (without losing the experience). This will allow you to level up companions to your liking.

Thursday - May 07, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Red Bull

by Myrthos, 12:49

The people from Red Bull boosted their energy and present us an interview with Feargus Urquhart on paid mods, player choice and Pillars' place in the fantasy revival.

Fantasy as a genre has changed a lot since the PC RPG heyday. But while Pillars is about complexity and had the fortune (and guile) to launch its Kickstarter in September 2012, just a few months after the wrap of Game of Thrones season 2, it’s Lord of the Rings to which Urquhart says the team owes the most credit (particularly Peter Jackson, and “his belief in Lord of the Rings as not just something that the nerds love”). In fact, around eight years ago, Obsidian actually turned down the opportunity to do the first Game of Thrones RPG.

“I don’t know if the project would have ever happened,” says Urquhart, candidly, “but we were approached by a big publisher, and they had the Game of Thrones licence at the time. And I love Game of Thrones – it’s an incredibly rich story and world and obviously the characterisation is amazing. But, there’s a couple of things about it that are challenging if you want to make a roleplaying game.

“Part of it was very interesting to us because of the focus on characters, and that’s kind of what we do. But if you think about the world, it’s so much about the politics and it’s so much about the linear story of what’s going on. Then you tie that to magic playing a very little role, and to be honest, [the story is] mostly [about] people. There’s not a lot of standard role-playing fantasy things, [like] putting an adventuring party together and going to find the abandoned ruins full of zombies and witches and ghosts and spectres and ghouls and all that kind of stuff.

“My recommendation at the time was that it would make a better RTS [real-time strategy game], or something like an RTS. Again, a geopolitical, war simulation-type game.” (Something which, incidentally, now exists: in the form of this mod for medieval RTS Crusader Kings 2).

Wednesday - May 06, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Reviews

This is an example, and arguably THE example, of a Kickstarter project done right. Obsidian clearly spent a lot of time and had a lot of passion for this game and it just shows everywhere. The game looks great, sounds great, plays great. I’ve played some Kickstarter funded projects and wondered when I was going to get the rest of the game. I play Pillars of Eternity and wonder what happened to the last five hours. It’s simply a joy to play which is pretty much one of the highest compliments I can give a game. I’ve enjoyed thousands of games over the last 30+ years. Few have been consistently a joy to play to the point where I look forward to the next time I can sit down with them and in some cases actively set up my schedule to make more free time for them. Pillars of Eternity is one of these rare gems. Even if it wasn’t for a review, I’d be playing this game relentlessly...and I think you should play it too.

Forget that one designer and his cockamamie claims about how games can only recreate childhood joy. Pillars of Eternity is capable of evoking so much more than nostalgia. Maybe it’ll get you to care about the fates of its fictional characters, like the enigmatically insane Durance and the chill-yet-tormented Edér. Maybe it’ll get you to stop and ogle at some of gorgeous art you’ll find throughout Dyrwood and neighboring regions. Maybe it’ll get you thinking about some of the themes it explores—death, purpose, faith—and challenge your viewpoints in interesting ways.

Despite relatively low system requirements (see below), Pillars of Eternity looks beautiful, even on my 5 year old iMac. The settings are detailed, different characters are easily discernible by their appearance and clothing, there are nice volumetric effects, and the graphics serve the story well. Likewise the sounds and voice acting. The only quibbles I’d have with the dialogue is that sometimes you’ll meet an NPC for the second or third time and be greeted as though it’s the first before the actual dialogue boxes appear; also the stock phrases from your party when you enter different game modes get repetitive. These are small issues that only stand out because everything else about the game is so superior.

Saturday - May 02, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Gamasutra

While Pillars of Eternity certainly hasn’t been simplified, what has changed is how it is all communicated: The combat makes more immediate sense, and the way the world is structured feels considerably more cohesive, perhaps because it isn’t beholden to the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

This is the result of a variety of different challenges that Obsidian faced, from the very large and initial challenge of taking something as complex and nuanced as the Infinity Engine and transplanting it into Unity, to developing a new world that feels familiar enough to the old that it isn’t abrasive, but has enough of its own identity that it can tread new ground.

The first of these problems actually turned out to be more of an opportunity. "What we found was that prototyping was very fast," says Josh Sawyer, director on Pillars of Eternity. He also served as a designer and writer on the game. "We knew how to do things using the actual Infinity Engine, but doing them within Unity, which is an engine we’d never used before, wasn’t the same because we had to build all those structures without relying on any established pipelines. We had to do everything from scratch."

Friday - May 01, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - 1.05 Patch Notes

This is a big one. Patch 1.05 features hundreds of bug fixes, balance changes, and new UI features. There are many minor fixes that are not listed in these notes.Please Note: Save games in 1.05 are not compatible with 1.04 or earlier versions. The game will automatically back up your save games in a special folder in the save game .directory after converting the saves to the new format.

Thursday - April 23, 2015

RPGWatch - Pillars of Eternity Review

It was late 1998 when those immortal, and for some, life changing words were first uttered: “You must gather your party before venturing forth.” The game was Baldurs Gate and the PC RPG was back.

Now, nearly 17 years later comes BG 3, …er, Pillars of Eternity; if nothing else, a definite spiritual successor to the original BG. It even has those famous words. As I played the game I continuously felt transported back to those wonderful IE engine games from Bioware/Black Isle, which is not surprising considering many of the same people were involved.

Pillars of Eternity - Audio Interview @ Reddit

What do you believe is the most important contribution to immersion in terms of audio design and implementation?

The first things that come to mind are weight and spatialization. Things need to have the right amount of low and high elements to properly convey how "heavy" something is. This along with a well tuned reverb setting in your level will increase immersion. Another thing is depth in your ambiance with multiple layers (background, mid-ground, and foreground). This can be achieved by using the right verb, ping pong delay, and a well tuned dry/wet mix. If you walk into a forest you aren't just going to hear birds in the trees right next to you. You will also hear distant, muffled creatures and birds coming from the left, right, and center.

Immersion is subjective by nature, but do you believe that any genres have an advantage in obtaining it?

I think each genre and camera style bring their own set of complications to creating immersive audio. I haven't had a huge variety of titles I've worked on so I can't say for certain if one genre is easier than another. I did mention something above about 2d games vs 3d but I think really that comes back down to having enough resources to get the best tools possible. There will always be limitation to any genre and it's your job as a sound designer to come up with creative ways to make it work.

It is common to understand that the audio budget generally suffers to that of it’s graphical counterpart, is that still the case in modern video games? And do you believe this budget limits the immersive capabilities that audio can achieve?

I don't think audio budgets are ever going to be able to match the visual budget. MOST developers and consumers just don't care as much about audio. People are much more forgiving of crappy audio than crappy graphics. The budget is definitely a limitation of what the audio can achieve but anything is possible with a strong creative audio team. You have to make do with your limitation.

Pillars of Eternity - Patch 1.04 Released

The 1.04 (540) patch is now live on Steam. It is currently going through the QA process for GOG and Origin and should be available on those sites in the next day or two. We will be posting a backer update regarding the patch later today or tomorrow. You can find the patch notes for 1.04 here.

Wednesday - April 15, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Beaten in 40 Minutes @ Kotaku

Kotaku has the usual news with information a gamer has beaten Pillars of Eternity in under forty minutes. Of course he used an exploit to achieve this speed record.

Here is the video that will contain spoilers.

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In this speedrun, which appears to be the current world record for Pillars of Eternity, Jiseed takes advantage of a few different game-breaking glitches to bypass chunks of the game that might otherwise take hours to complete.

Tuesday - April 14, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Video Review @ RPGSite

Darren MacPhail brings us a new (very thorough) video review with a look at Obsidian's latest with Pillars of Eternity, an RPG that evokes the classics. And why not, considering the founders of the studio used to work at Black Isle Studios that helped create the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment.

While elements such as the writing and level design are on point as always when it comes to the developer, there are a few things that newcomers should be aware of coming into this modern interpretation of a beloved period of time for Western RPG fans.

Saturday - April 11, 2015

RPGWatch - Pillars of Eternity Opinion Article

Fluent & Aubrielle collaborated on a new article for Pillars of Eternity. Now it must be said this is not a review as Corwin is working on that, and it will be posted in two parts.

As an avid RPG gamer and Wannabe-RPG Developer Extraordinaire, lately when I've been playing RPGs and picturing the game I would like to develop in my mind, I often ask myself an important question of the game I'm playing. It's simply this:

"What is the genius of this game?"

That simple question will cut right down to the heart of any game you can think of. Try it now - ask yourself "What is the genius of Skyrim, Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights, or any game you can think of." You will soon start thinking about those extremely important core elements that stuck with you the most; the things that defined the game in your mind. The genius aspects, if you will.

So, by taking this question and applying it to a game like Pillars of Eternity, I have come up with this answer:

"The genius of Pillars of Eternity, is that it's basically Baldur's Gate 2015."

It's that simple. Pillars of Eternity is one of the purest RPGs since Baldur's Gate. That's more than 15 years for those of you who aren't up on your RPG history. Pillars is a game that doesn't try to redefine the genre. It doesn't try to rewrite the classic RPGs it was inspired by. It doesn't try to do too much that it can't pull off. The sheer genius lies in this simple fact. It is basically Baldur's Gate 2015.

Pillars of Eternity - Interview & New Patch Notes

Urquhart fully recognizes that even though the game is out there, there is still work to be done. That includes upcoming patches, with Urquhart noting that 1.05, in particular, set to introduce some quality of life improvements. This includes allowing players to change portraits, balance tweaks, and other adjustments based on player feedback.

The big takeaway from the call, however, is that Obsidian is already hard at work crafting an expansion for Pillars of Eternity. In fact, Urquhart offered a reminder that an expansion was always planned since the game's Kickstarter. The only thing that's changed is the manner in which it will be issued.

"We've always been planning to do an expansion and the way we're really looking at it is that it needs to be a meaty expansion," Urquhart explained. "It needs to be this old-school expansion, not some DLC that's two or three hours of gameplay. What it looks like we're going to do, because this kind of expansion can take a while, we're going to split the expansion into two parts. It's going to be one full story that will go from part one to part two, but it's going to be two parts and anyone from Kickstarter that contributed will get both parts. They'll get the full expansion, but the best part is that they'll be able to play it early. We should have an announcement coming up soon."

These are the tentative patch notes for 1.04. We have started generating builds for QA and are planning to release it in a few business days, if not sooner, depending on how testing goes. These are subject to change, and additional items may end up being added in the final notes. The team is now working on patch 1.05, and only critical fixes will be added to 1.04 to make sure we can release this as soon as we can. We are most definitely continuing to read through support threads and e-mails to us (even if we haven't been responsive enough, and we plan to continue doing so for the foreseeable future!

Thursday - April 09, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Another Short Roundup

Although the studio set out to evoke the spirit of the Baldur's Gate age, it has gone one better by delivering a product that conjures nostalgia, yet feels every inch a modern game capable of standing tall beside the market leaders.

Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity is a love letter to those gamers who remember RPGs of old – when parties were large, adventures were world-sprawling, and you read a book or two worth of words before the world was saved.

Pillars of Eternity is a must-buy for anyone who has played classic titles like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights or Planescape, and it will certainly deliver the story, the conversations, the companions, the combat and the big themes that they are yearning for.

Pillars of Eternity is indeed great fun for RPG players young and old, and you don’t need a $2000 beast to play it on either. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a deep and involving experience, and has the time to give it the respect it deserves.

Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity revisits the company’s Black Isle roots, resulting in a High Fantasy, party-based RPG in the traditional style. Strong thematic hooks, well-written characters and reactive quest design, all resting on an original set of tabletop-inspired mechanics, make this a triumphant return.

Pillars of Eternity - Collaborative Storytelling

I take roleplaying seriously. That’s not to say I have a cupboard full of lucky dice or a handcrafted elven tunic – what I mean to say is that when I play an RPG, I try to make all of my decisions based on my character rather than the systems. I’ll pass up a huge pile of loot if I don’t think that taking it would be in-character. Roleplaying is a performance of sorts and Pillars of Eternity encourages my particular approach to the genre by combining a huge, tightly scripted plot with systems that go some way toward mimicking the best qualities of a human Dungeon Master.

Monday - April 06, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interviews & More Reviews

by Couchpotato, 05:49

I found some more new interviews , and reviews for Pillars of Eternity this week. So lets get started wit the first interview from gamepressure about updates & expansions.

We've had a chance to talk about Pillars of Eternity with Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. Among the discussed topics was the success of this classic cRPG, as well as its future in the form of an upcoming expansion and another Kickstarter.

Releasing to rave reviews following a successful Kickstarter campaign and years of development, Pillars of Eternity is a deep and richly rewarding adventure, containing both old-school RPG roots and some reimagined concepts. I recently spoke to Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart over Skype about the benefits of funding a game through Kickstarter, their plans for future expansions, morality in games, and taking Pillars of Eternity's lore and characters to other forms of media, like books, card games, and a tabletop RPG.

Pillars of Eternity - Patch 1.03 Notes Released

These are the tentative patch notes for the upcoming patch 1.03 release. These may change before it is finally released. This patch is currently in test, and will be released as soon as is possible. Thank you everyone for your patience with us!

The first bug happens when you save and load a game in an area where you picked up a follower. If said follower is having any bonus to stats from whatever (eg. a magic ring) these bonuses will stack an become permanent every time you load that savegame. Eg. if you put a +50 enducance ring on Eder and save and load in Gilded Vale this bonus will become permanent, and it will stack as many times as you save/lad in this area. Eder can become pretty invincible from this. The same happens to other followers in the areas where they are picked up. This bug is probably the reason why many people find the game too easy, even on "Hard".

Hi guys,if you were hit by this game breaking bug and really want to fix it without waiting for the patch, there's hope!

The Fix requires some runtime memory editing of the game, but with right tools it's really quite easy. If you are not sure if the bug applies to you, scroll down to section "Does it bug me?".

Word of caution: You'll be given a great power to manipulate all the Statistics of any Player Character in the game. I recommend only using this technique to repair, not further break the game. Making an overpowered character can seem to be fun - but really what it does is ruin the intended game experience and make Josh sad. Without further ado, I'll walk you right through it.

The second bug strips away any passive bonuses when you double-click to move around inventory. You can fix it for the followers by dismissing and take them back in an inn/stronghold, but you can't fix it for the PC.

And Toadster finished his reply with the following warning.

As mentioned, you will not notice these bugs if you don't pay close attention to the stats. And chances are that they will change your experience with the game significantly.

Hopefully the first patch from Obsidian will officially fix both bugs.

Pillars of Eternity - Small Review Roundup

Overall if you’re a fan of a game which you can get lost in for hours then this game will enrich your life too no-end, with its simple too get combat mechanics that are highly flexible too your needs at the time whether a novice expert or beginner or the amazing world it builds.

Overall, I am quite impressed by Pillars of Eternity, not only does it have a gripping story that is also massive in length but it has enough choice and character customization to play the game for years and not finish the game with every single character. I was admittedly hesitant when starting up Pillars as I had no clue on what I was in for. Now, Pillars of Eternity has a permanent spot on my PC’s hard drive. I am glad I played and still am playing Pillars of Eternity, it doesn’t have the best graphics, nor does it have explosions as far as the eye can see, but to me, Pillars of Eternity is one of the best games of 2015.

Really, if silly memorials and high difficulty are all I can complain about, it’s easy to say that Pillars of Eternity is a fantastic game. There’s a staggering amount of content here, a new setting to immerse yourself in and plenty of tactical combat in which to indulge. The first time I booted this one up, I lost four hours to it in the blink of an eye. I’m sure it’ll do the same for anyone else who enjoys CRPGs.

Pillars of Eternity is so much more than a nostalgic journey of old-school adventure; it has reinvigorated a genre that was destined for the history books. The nods to its predecessors are all there, and why it may not be called Baldur's Gate 3, or be set in the same Lore, it is undoubtedly the spiritual successor to one of the best RPG franchises in history.

Pillars of Eternity - Animancy & Faith @ RPS

Now that people have had a weekend to spend with Pillars Of Eternity, it feels a bit more appropriate to offer thoughts on parts of the game that would otherwise have been spoiling revelations or moments within the opening few hours. Not core plot events, or twists that may occur, but just the basics – basics I wanted to leave out of my review because it felt like stealing. Stealing the blank slate experience I had from you, in my effort to describe the game.

So here are a first couple of extended chunks I would have liked to have included when expressing and explaining my enthusiasm. Assume big spoilers.

Monday - March 30, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Quick Look @ Rampant Coyote

I tried to keep my hopes down. After all, it funded for “only” $4 million. That’s not a big budget by today’s standards … or Obsidian’s. Sure, they were able to reduce their budget requirements by adhering to less-than-AAA technology or requirements. And the engine was built on Unity, which made tech development a little bit cheaper. But these days, technology is not the main cost of game development.

A new world, new game system, and an incredible legacy to live up to on a limited budget? Yeah, there’s no sense in setting my expectations too high. I wasn’t even planning on playing it the first day. But I guess I can download 7 gigs worth of data in less time than I thought, and so a few hours after I got home from work, the game was ready to play. With a little fear of disappointment, I started it up.

Sunday - March 29, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Patch Details & More Reviews

A post on reddit opens up the thread to those looking for technical support with Pillars of Eternity in addition to what's offered on their Obsidian's Technical Support forum for the just-released role-playing game. That said, he indicates the official forums are probably a better place to start if you need help.

He also points the way to a thread with workarounds for several known issues. There is also a Pillars of Eternity Support FAQ with word on patch plans, saying: "Yes, we're currently working on patch 1.03, which we hope to release during the week of March 30. We are actively monitoring the Technical Support forum and pulling issues out into our internal bug database."

Obsidian has crafted a game full of challenge, intrigue, betrayal, and heart. The Eastern Reach is bleak and hopeful at the same time, and the main plot is packed with twists and surprises with staggering ramifications for a world players will feel they have become part of.

Pillars of Eternity is a welcome return to the CRPGs of old, and it’s a definite must-play for any CRPG fan or RPG fan, period. It has so many moving parts that work so incredibly well together with an unbelievably rich history and mythology. Pillars of Eternity will gladly eat up several hours of your time, and you will gladly give them.

In short, Obsidian Entertainment has created a specific title for a specific audience, but has done so with great success. Pillars of Eternity is a must-have for fans of the Infinity Engine RPGs, or 1990s computer role-playing games in general. Those unfamiliar with the genre may find the title a little less involving, but Pillars of Eternity is undoubtedly a triumph.

My playthrough thus far couldn't be better! I received a review copy approximately a week before the game released, and spent that time playing through and greatly enjoying myself. The game is legendary, so watch the video and see what I have to say about it!

Pillars of Eternity is a game that was created by Obsidian Entertainment. After a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $4 million dollars, they set out to create their ultimate vision of what a modern Infinity Engine game should be. The end result? Pillars of Eternity, one of the greatest RPGs in the last 15 years! I'd say they succeeded! Well done, Obsidian!

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ IncGamers

IG: Obsidian has always been a company with great vision, but sometimes games have been plagued by bugs on release. How confident are you that Pillars of Eternity is coming out solid?

JS: I came here to work on Neverwinter Nights 2. The early days of Obsidian were Knights of The Old Republic 2, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Alpha Protocol, and all three of those games had a lot of bugs. After Alpha Protocol we said that as much as possible we needed to fix that problem.

So with Dungeon Siege 3, that came out and it was, I don’t want to say completely bug free, but that was a really really solid launch. South Park also did really well coming out.

With Pillars, because it’s our game and we were doing some of the QA, we knew we had to take control of it and make sure it’s really solid. That’s one of the reasons why it was delayed.

With any RPG of this size there’s so many things you can do that I’m sure people are going to find something that we didn’t find when it comes out. Basically, we’re ready so that when people find things, we’re going to turn around and fix them as soon as possible; come out with a patch as soon as possible; fix anything big. Then we’re going have another patch after that to fix the longer term things people are going to encounter. It’s important that people feel they can trust us and that the game is going to be good when it comes out, but we know that given that it’s and RPG being made from scratch, and an engine that we haven’t worked with before, there’s always going to be some weird stuff that… you know… a few hundred people who might have played the game is not the same as hundreds of thousands of people… But we’re ready!

This has been a really great experience for us, we never thought we’d have the chance to make a game like this again. It’s really the dream of an independent developer to make their own IP and retain control of it, and it’s hard to negotiate deals like that. The fans that have allowed us to do this have done us a great service by helping us. So we hope that, not only that the game is good and they enjoy it, but that they enjoy the world and we can continue making more games in this setting in years to come.

Reward Redemption

Hey, everyone. After two and a half years, we're happy that you're finally going be able to get your hands on Pillars of Eternity. It's been a great pleasure to work on a traditional PC RPG again and it wouldn't have been possible without your interest, support, and feedback. We hope that playing Pillars of Eternity gives you the same feelings you had when you played the Infinity Engine games. Many of you have told us how much these games have meant to you over the years. It's always been our goal to recapture that experience as well as we can. We've worked hard to provide you with a beautiful world to explore, flexible systems that allow you to build all the characters and parties you can dream up, and a rich story that responds to the choices you make. Nothing can replace the Infinity Engine games, but we hope Pillars of Eternity is a worthy successor to that heritage.

Kickstarter Tiers and Special Editions

Due to popular demand we have created special Kickstarter Backer editions on both Steam and GOG. These editions match the retail versions of the Hero, Champion, and Royal editions, but they come with a few extra Kickstarter goodies. When you go onto your Products page on the Backer Portal you will see which Kickstarter edition was granted to your Kickstarter tier. This was done so that people could download their rewards in multiple places.

Unfortunately, we were unable to map every tier perfectly. We have many tiers, many different combinations of add-ons, and only a few Kickstarter editions. Don't worry, though, because if your Kickstarter edition doesn't come with a reward you should be getting for your Kickstarter tier you can download it from the Backer Portal. In fact, the Backer Portal is the official way to download your rewards - we will always have them available for you on the Portal.

If you would like to see what products come with your Backer tier you can find that information by going to your Orders page on the Backer Portal. If you expand your order you can click on the "What does this include?" link to see all of your rewards associated with the order.

Pillars of Eternity - The Wailing Banshee Inn

For our friends at GameBanshee:

Pillars of Eternity: The Wailing Banshee Inn

It was the largest battle of the War of Defiance, and the imperial army of Aedyr had blockaded the rebel capital of Defiance Bay with its fleet. They chose to invade with ground troops at the weakest point, a poorly fortified position in a district known as Ondra's Gift, which had once been a wetland before being drained and settled.

What the invaders didn't know was that they were being drawn into a trap. Aedyran soldiers stormed the district to find it abandoned, and before they could make sense of it, the dikes behind them were destroyed, and the district was flooded. The army of Aedyr was decimated.

Most of the original district was swept away in the flood, or remains beneath the water, a submerged ruin. One of the only surviving structures was a lighthouse, which now lies at the far end of the farthest dock of Ondra's Gift - and the locals prefer it that way. Those unaware of the local superstitions who pass that way find that their blood runs cold as they near it, and their bodies are overcome with panic. But often they remain paralyzed just long enough to hear the screams from within, and it's the screams that stay with them, haunting their dreams, spawning a host of wild stories - some about vengeful soldier ghosts, some about a lighthouse keeper who never knew to evacuate.

The key to the lighthouse has passed from one naïve would-be owner to the next, often through trickery. The last such victim was a young woman named Niah who had aspirations of converting the lighthouse into an inn that ended as quickly as her workers could flee. Though she still has hopes for it, she has yet to conjure the nerve to set foot inside.

Pillars of Eternity - Interview & Preview Roundup

I had a great turnout for this one, an interview conducted with the Project Lead for one of the most highly anticipated RPGs in recent memory. Josh was both gracious and thoughtful in his answers, and for my part I somehow managed not to die to a bunch of beetles during the interview, so on the whole I think this worked out. :)

The full broadcast of my interview with Josh Sawyer and subsequent playthrough of the beta version of Pillars of Eternity. There was a long pause right after the interview (had to attend to my dog, so wasn't able to get back as fast as I had hoped), so you will probably want to fast forward through that section

The ruleset being used by Obsidian is not your traditional D&D. Instead, Obsidian built their own rulebook for Pillars of Eternity. As they put it themselves:

“Players will recognize many familiar elements -- six attribute scores, many classic races and classes, discrete character levels, a roll-to-hit combat system, strength-based personal character inventories -- but the systems use seconds (and fractions of seconds) instead of rounds, a virtual "100-sided die" for more transparent combat mechanics, and the use of easily-understood formulas that would be difficult to calculate in a tabletop environment.”

To that end, expect to see quite a few familiar classes, but with their own unique Pillars-y twists. Without further ado, here comes the first batch of 11 possible classes!

IRVINE, CA — March 17, 2015 — Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive today announced that Pillars of Eternity, the fan-funded modern take on a classic role-playing game (RPG) set in an original world created by some of the best minds in RPG development, has reached “Gold Master” (GM) status, and is now ready for its release on March 26, 2015. Pillars of Eternity, originally called “Project Eternity” the 10th most funded Kickstarter ever and second most funded video game , has been in development for two and a half years, and is now ready to complete its journey, arriving on Windows, Mac, and Linux PC next week. The game will release globally, with backers receiving their digital copies as well.

“Seeing Pillars of Eternity through has been an incredible journey for all of us at a deeply personal level,” said Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. “When we took our idea to Kickstarter, our fans got behind us more than we ever thought. It’s been a blast to match their enthusiasm, see them cheer us on, and have them help to keep us on course every step of the way. It's crazy to think that more than two years have come and gone, but time flies that way when you are creating something as important as Pillars of Eternity has become to us.”

“We knew, when we joined forces with Obsidian, that both the studio and the game were a perfect match for us,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “A core tenet at Paradox is staying closely connected to one’s players and community, and we’ve watched Obsidian do exactly that. From the handling of their crowd-funding to their open dialogue with fans on their forums, Obsidian has been dedicated to fulfilling their promises to players, and we’ve been glad for the chance to help them do it. We’re looking forward to working together with Obsidian for a long time to come.”

"I won’t reveal much about it since it’s early in development, but we’ve already have a small team working on areas and environments while the rest of the team focus on shipping the game. We will announcing more things about it over the next few months."

Hey all, with now 13 days left until Pillars of Eternity launches, we have two new screenshots for you! Enjoy the awesomeness of the Engwithan empire!

Little is known about the long-lost Engwithan empire or its culture. Called the "Builders" by the tribes of Eir Glanfath, the Engwithans are believed to have created strange, elaborate structures over decades using shaped pillars of living adra to support the stone. Their language is barely understood by even the most well-read scholars, leaving many details of their society lost to the ages and hopelessly mired in rumor, folklore, and blatant lies.

Pillars of Eternity - New Screenshots Released

Pillars of Eternity releases later this month and Obsidian Entertainment released today two new screenshots from it. Pillars of Eternity is an RPG inspired by classic titles such as Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment, which features an original world and game system that evokes and aims to improve upon the traditional computer RPG experience. Enjoy the screenshots.

Pillars of Eternity - Beta Build 480 Released

Hey, everyone. Backer Beta 480 should be live for all OSes. This is going to be the last update to our backer beta. If you are worried that your feedback and bugs won't have time to be integrated into the game, don't be. We are going to be creating patches for day one and beyond, so any feedback you give now may go into those patches.

I wanted to personally thank you for helping us make Pillars of Eternity a great game. The feedback, bugs, and, sometimes, criticism has been very useful in shaping a game that we think all of our backer will enjoy. We are lucky to have such dedicated fans. Have fun!

Pillars of Eternity - Closing in on March 26th

Hello, backers. We are closing in on our release date. It is a pretty exciting time, but you are probably wondering about the process to redeem your game (and other rewards) on our Backer Portal. In this update we will discuss the basic process of reward redemption on the Backer Portal and in the next update we will get in depth and provide instructions for you. We also have some cool stuff to show off like a teaser of our documentary, new screenshots, and our PAX Panel.

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ Eurogamer

I had no idea things at Obsidian Entertainment had been so bad. I knew things weren't great before the record-breaking Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign, but I didn't realise that game had saved the company - that without it the studio would have closed.

"We had a date in mind where, like, if we pass this date [without signing a project], we're basically screwed," revealed key Obsidian person Adam Brennecke, during a preview of the Road to Eternity documentary film. "We were basically going to run out of money."

"It was really exciting but it was a lot of work," said Obsidian boss Feargus Urquhart in the documentary clip. "And unfortunately the game got cancelled."

"With these larger budgets, when you crash, you crash hard," added Josh Sawyer, director of Fallout: New Vegas and now Pillars of Eternity. "And for a company the size of Obsidian, to have a project cancelled like that, it had a big impact on us financially."

Pillars of Eternity - Majority of Content Optional

Lead designer Josh Sawyer said the role-playing game, which was funded through Kickstarter back in 2012, will strike a better balance of critical and side content than Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate.

"I'd say about two thirds to three quarters of the game's content is completely optional," he told Digital Spy and other journalists at this year's Paradox Convention.

"It's very important, I think, for the sense of exploration that you feel you do not have to go to that many places. There are lots of places you can go to whenever you want, at your own pace."

Wednesday - March 04, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Raedric's Hold Screenshots

Today we have some information and screen shots on Raedric's Hold for you all!

The Raedric line has held dominion over the lands surrounding Gilded Vale for generations, and its formidable keep stands as a bulwark against the dangers of the Dyrwood. Despite their lofty position as Aedyran nobility, the Raedrics joined in the fighting for independence from the Empire during the War of Defiance. In the wake of the Dyrwood's victory, they retained both their stronghold and their stature. Raedric VII now carries the title of Thayn, pledged to Gilded Vale's defense against all threats - both physical and spiritual in nature. Raedric's iron-fisted rule has seen his people through many hardships, but in the aftermath of the Saint's War, new threats have arisen - threats Raedric has sworn to scour from his lands and reclaim some of Gilded Vale's past glory. At his invitation, new settlers have braved long distances to settle within Gilded Vale, tempted by the offer of land and opportunity.

Saturday - February 28, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ PCGamesN

Earlier this month, I sat in a slightly uncomfortable chair while Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer narrated an hour of monster murder in Pillars of Eternity. Alongside the fantastical adventuring and branching dialogue are plenty of battles. The party wandered through sprawling dungeons, gothic castles and clifftop forests, all full of a wide variety of nasties waiting to be set on fire or stabbed.

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ GameWatcher

Snazzy graphics and spell effects, and enjoyable combat are both nice things to have in an RPG, there’s no doubt, but in some ways they’re the easiest things to get right. What a lot of games miss out on is that sense that the player has options, that if they’re clever there’s always another way to solve a problem. Admittedly this is a segment of Obsidian’s game they’ve specifically chosen to show a more peaceful approach of, and there’s no telling how much of the game assumes you’ll just march in and start magic-missiling every poor sod in the room, but Pillars looks like it’s also taking welcome inspiration from the frantic, making-it-up-as-we-go-along spirit of tabletop role-playing. This can only be a good thing.

Wednesday - February 25, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ GameWatcher

by Couchpotato, 02:35

Nick Horth of GameWatcher interviewed Game director Josh Sawyer, and asked him a few questions about Pillars of Eternity. As usual here is a small sample of questions.

GameWatcher: Will we experience major choices and consequences throughout the story? You’ve talked about wanting to create a reactive narrative.Josh Sawyer: It’s important throughout the game. We have a number of different things that reflect your choices throughout the game. We have your reputation between factions, we have immediate reactions depending on the decisions you make in completing a quest, and then we have new a mechanic called ‘Disposition’. What that is is an indicator of how you behave in the world. It’s not good/bad, it’s more like… asshole or benevolent, charismatic or blunt.

We have ten different personality types; benevolent, cruel, diplomatic, aggressive, honest, deceptive, rational, passionate… is that all of them? Pretty much. Anyway, in dialogue you might see an option that says ‘diplomatic minor’ response, you can hide these tags by the way, and as you start picking those you get not only the initial reaction from the character you’re talking to, but you also start adding points to your Disposition score. Choose a lot of aggressive, hothead things and when you walk into town people we be like, “calm down dude, we don’t want any trouble.”

That was important for us because it’s really fun to pick cool dialogue options, and if you’re playing a tabletop RPG it’s fun to mess around with those and see how people respond. In a CRPG, usually the choice feels like a throwaway; you say the sassy thing, the guy says “oh, man, you’re so sassy”, and then it never comes up again. We wanted to have a systemic layer where those choices matter. If you want to be a sassy asshole, you can play that character and NPCs will respond to it. You’re not just building a character from stats, you’re building a personality, and that makes interacting with the world much more interesting and reactive.

GameWatcher: Obviously I’m trying to stay well out of the spoiler minefield here, but does Pillars have a distinct, one-off story? The original Baldur’s Gate sort of set itself up directly for a sequel at the end – does this feel like a complete story in and of itself?

Josh Sawyer: Yes, I think it does. Obviously if we want to make a sequel we’ll follow up on things, but this is a complete story with a distinct ending. There’s no big twist that gets unresolved, and there’s a real sense of closure at the end. There’s lots of stuff to build on, obviously, but the main conflict is resolved at the end of the game.

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ PC World

On expansions and sequels

JS: They're going to be extensions of the main game. We are making an automated save for you, it's actually called the Point of No Return Save. So if you complete the whole game and you're like "Oh %#&^, the expansion came out," great. Load that save, you can go straight into it, it's fine. It's something connected to the main game but its own separate storyline, and you take your normal characters into it. We're in the very early stages of planning it.

We have to see exactly how it integrates in terms of location and how it shows up on the map, or whether it's its own separate world map. But we have a ton of locations. Baldur's Gate was about 100-110. Baldur's Gate II was 200-and-something? Ours is 150. Pretty big. It's a long game, even if you play just the crit path. If you play all the stuff it's a very long game.

[Are you looking at save imports for a sequel too?]

JS: We'd very much like that. People like the idea of taking their characters on a long, epic journey. Even going back to the classic RPGs, it was nice to bring your character in and keep going with it.

Contrary to what someone interpreted what our CEO said, we're not working on a sequel at all yet. We're not even really talking about it except to say "That'd be cool. Hope people like this game." But we do think about, if we were to make a sequel we do want the player to be able to bring their character from this game, come over into the next game, and of course reflect the choices they made in the previous game.

Pillars of Eternity - Shipping & Strategy Guide

Poll Results

First, we would like to thank all of our backers for taking the time to vote. It is very important to us that you are able to express your choice and voice your opinion about the shipping of rewards.

At close to 75% of the vote, it looks like shipping the physical rewards at the game's release and the game discs at a later date is the winner. This is how we will proceed with the shipping.

We realize that some of our backers have been asking about the possibility of selectively opting out of this choice and instead getting their items shipped to them all at once, multiple weeks after the game's release. We don't have an answer for this right now, but we are discussing the possibility with Paradox. Depending on the logistical realities we may not be able to provide this option, but we will explore the possibility. As for now, everyone will have their physical rewards shipped as soon as possible, and their game discs at a later date.

Friday - February 13, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Backer Rewards Update

by Couchpotato, 01:23

Obsidian's latest update for Pillars of Eternity may upset a few backers as it talks about Backer rewards, and most importantly the DRM-Free physical release.

So here is our conundrum. We have a real conflict between delivering a fully working DRM-free disc and meeting our manufacturing requirements to get you your physical rewards as near to March 26th as we can. This is a real concern, again, if a version of the game that really isn’t the final version is leaked onto the internet. The pledges backers like you put in to the game are not only at risk, it just plain sucks if lots of other people are playing the game you funded before you do. Obviously, we want the game to sell well enough so we can make more of them too, and an early leak of the disc concerns us enough that we’d like to share these concerns with you too and see what you think.

So, what can we do?

There are two things we feel we could do that would help mitigate these concerns:

We ship everything out except the game disc, which we then ship to you after finalizing the 1.0 version. Wait a minute, Darren. That sounds crazy. You’re going to ship me a game with NO DISC inside at first?!

Here’s why we think that’s good: Anyone who pledged to a physical reward tier will get a digital copy. You’ll be able to get a Steam or GOG.com key on our site and play the game at the same time as everyone else. You’d be able to take out your Collector’s Guidebook, your cloth map, your mousepad and enjoy all of it at the same you’re playing Pillars of Eternity.

Alternatively, we delay shipping everything out to you once we have the final 1.0 version ready. For some parts of the world, this could mean a delay of some real significance. Not just a week or two, but multiple weeks after it’s released.

While it’s rather unorthodox, we really prefer option #1, even though it is going to cost us more in shipping costs. We just think it will be more fun for everyone to be able to enjoy all of the game and its add-ons at the same time. However, you’ve backed this game, so we want to hear what you think.

They also posted a video from Pax South in-case you missed it here you go.

Pillars of Eternity - Beta Build 435 Released

Hey, everyone. A new backer beta build is live on all three platforms.

Our major focus over the past few weeks was reducing in-game memory usage and other optimizations. We are still optimizing, but things are coming along nicely.

You will also notice that Josh has been doing lots of balancing throughout various systems in the game. For example, traps should be extremely deadly now. If you weren't on the lookout before, you should be. Hope you enjoy the fixes.

Sunday - January 18, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - Short Q&A @RPGCodex

Our friends at RPGCodex asked Chris Avellone about his current work on Pillars of Eternity. Here's a brief excerpt. Visit the Codex to read the whole thing.

Sitting down to write two characters for Eternity, Avellone felt as if the chains were off.

“I’m not writing for a publisher right now,” he thought. “So I can write about subjects we’re normally not allowed to. What’s interesting about the world of Eternity that I think these two companions could have something to say about?”

In the end, Avellone went too far even for his colleagues at Obsidian - those characters won’t appear in the game as he originally intended.

Have you ever wanted to sit in a Pillars of Eternity leads meeting? Now is your chance. I can't promise that it will be the most exciting 20 minutes you will spend, but it should give you some insight into our daily processes.

Wednesday - January 14, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - March Release Date (Official!)

by Killias2, 17:26

Whoa. That was fast. According to the recent Kickstarter update, the official release date of Pillars of Eternity will be March 26th, 2015. The update also contains information on how to redeem orders as a backer and on the finalization/polishing process for Pillars of Eternity.

Tuesday - December 23, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Beta Build 392 Released

Hello, all. Build 392 is now live for the Backer Beta. Currently, we only have the Windows build up on Steam, but we are looking into the Mac build. If we place it up I will update this post.

Important Changes

You will notice quite a few combat balance changes in this build. Be on the lookout and let us know what you think.

You will notice many UI polish changes. Some screens may even be entirely new (loot screen, I'm looking at you).

Most of the icons are now in the game. There are still a few that are missing, but those should be few and far between.

Some final VO is in the game. You will also notice sound sets are in and hooked up.

Skill system has changed back to a point-buy system.

Talents are now organized during level up.

Important Known Issues

It can be difficult to loot bodies sometimes. It can help to try to loot the bodies toward their feet. One workaround is to do a save/load. The body will turn into a loot bag and you will be able to loot it properly.

Saving with a modal active will cause the modal to appear to be non-functioning. If you deactivate and reactivate the modal a couple of times it will start working again.

Pressing the "Take All" button in the Loot UI, if a lootable body is underneath the "Take All" button, will cause the cursor to get stuck. This can prevent you from opening doors or interacting with objects. To clear this you can do a few things: mouse over a loot container, loot anything, transition, or save/load.

The "proof" mods (e.g. Pierce-proof) are not stacking correctly and will have problems after a save/load. Best to avoid those mods for the time being.

Fixed Issues

If an issue has "Needs Verification" after it. It means a fix has been checked in, but QA hasn't checked it yet. These issues are likely fixed, but a few may fail the verification process.

Thursday - November 27, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Voiceovers and the First Complete Playthroughs

by Hexprone, 03:57

Joshua Sawyer has posted Update #87 on the development of Pillars of Eternity. The Obsidian team just finished a "play week" in which developers were given the chance to play the whole game from start to finish rather than sticking to the limited span of the backer beta. Sawyer writes:

We learned a lot from the play week. Most notably: Pillars of Eternity is a big game.

Only two of our developers managed to finish. One was a designer who developed a lot of the crit path and sprinted straight for the end. The other found an early ending and decided to wrap his story up there. About half of the developers had not yet made it to Defiance Bay (the first big city).

In his wonkish way, Sawyer also breaks down a list of gameplay tweaks, including:

Combat was still too fast. We increased the Recovery of most creatures and tuned the global Recovery factor to slow down combat overall.

Melee Engagement needs to be communicated more clearly. (Yes it does!)

Standard casting and Recovery times were too long. The standard casting time was adjusted down to make casting feel less sluggish.

Hiring adventurers, buying items, crafting, and enchanting were all much too expensive. These have all been made more affordable.

All classes need a per encounter ability to use at 1st level. (Yes we do!)

They're also beginning to add voiced dialogue and character barks, as well as continuing to expand the variety of character portraits. A new Pale Elf and a couple from the Vailan Republic are below.

Wednesday - November 12, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Available for Pre-order

Paradox Interactive & Obsidian announced today that Pillars of Eternity available for Pre-order worldwide, and released a new trailer to go with the announcement.

Pillars of Eternity Now Available for Pre-order Worldwide

Discounts and In-game Bonuses Available with Pre-orders; New Content Debuts Thursday in Live Stream

STOCKHOLM — November 11, 2014 — Paradox Interactive and Obsidian Entertainment today announced that Pillars of Eternity, the fan-funded role-playing game (RPG) inspired by classics of the genre, is now available to pre-order from digital distributors everywhere with a discount available for early purchasers. Pre-orders of the game will also include special in-game bonus items – while fans who backed the game on Kickstarter will receive these extras free of charge.

Paradox and Obsidian have also announced that this week they plan to reveal a wide array of never-before-seen game content via a live stream, hosted by Josh Sawyer, Project Director for Pillars of Eternity, alongside popular gaming personality Jesse Cox. The live stream will air Thursday, November 13 at 1pm PST (22.00 CET) on the official Paradox Interactive Twitch channel: www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Get a breathtaking glimpse at the beautiful world of Eora in a newly released trailer for Pillars of Eternity.

All pre-orders of Pillars of Eternity will receive a 10% discount (limited time offer) off of the game's full retail price and will include two secret, special in-game items. This discount and the in-game bonus offer are valid for both versions of the game, including the Hero Edition, which includes the full version of Pillars of Eternity, and the Champion Edition, which includes both the full game and a variety of premium bonuses:

Monday - November 10, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - OSX Yosemite Problems

Hey, everyone. We are aware of the crashing problems on Yosemite right now. After talking to some other projects that are using Unity for their engine the problems may not be unique to our game. We are going to continue to look into it and hopefully it will be something we can resolve on our side and not something that will have to wait for a Unity fix. Thanks for your patience.

Sunday - October 26, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - New Beta Patch Released

Hey, everyone. The latest Backer Beta update is now live. We hope you enjoy. I have included some patch notes.

Thanks for all of the help in testing the game and providing useful feedback.

Talents and Core Abilities

Over a hundred Talents have been added to allow more options for class customization during the level up process. We've adjusted how the core class abilities are granted to allow for more flexibility within each class.

Revised Skill Progression

You can no longer spend points to upgrade skills during level up. All skill advancement is now done through Talents, and thematically grouped Talents will award additional skill points if chosen during level up. Your background choice during character creation will also reward additional skill points.

Fog Of War

The Fog of War has been upgraded to obey the sight visibility for the party members. No more cheating by looking over walls and closed doors in dungeons!

Experience Points

We decided to add a few more ways to gain experience points to increase the regularity that XP is rewarded throughout the game. We've added minor bestiary, exploration, lock, and trap XP rewards. Bestiary XP is rewarded when new entries are unlocked in the Bestiary page in the Journal, and will stop being rewarded if the entry is complete. Exploration XP is given out when new areas and landmarks are discovered in the world.

Glossary

An in game glossary has been added with explanation and definitions of game and combat rules. These entries are hyperlinked so you can easily find information on what you are looking for. You can click directly on keywords in the combat log, or open up the Journal's Glossary page.

Hotkeys

Hotkeys can be assigned to any ability on the hot bar and additionally be access through a quick hotkey menu. We still intend to revise how this system works, but please provide feedback if you like or dislike our direction.

EDIT: I forgot to add that the Mac build is now available for download from Steam! The Linux build still has a problem with loading and unloading asset bundles. Unity knows about the issue and we will release the Linux build once they post a fix. Thanks for the patience.

Visit the link above for the full change list as it's to long to fit in the news-bit.

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update # 86

Additional Time for Polish and Feedback

Through your help and feedback, the Pillars of Eternity team has spent the past two years creating a fun, fulfilling experience. An open development has enabled us to interact with our fans and backers in a way we weren't able to in the past, and this has really helped shape Eternity into a game that we all hoped it would become. Plus, with the Backer Beta, we have been able to get excellent feedback from our backers that we are using to shape Eternity into an even better game. We really can't thank you enough.

To incorporate as much feedback as possible, polish every nook and cranny of the game, and make sure we don't ship a buggy game, Obsidian has decided to push the game's release into early next year. We are going to use the extra time to make Eternity shine for our backers, and a game that we were proud to call our own and would live up to your expectations.

Once again, we want to thank you for making this all possible. With your help we can bring Eternity across the finish line.

Speaking of Backer Beta

We are hard at work implementing feedback and bugfixing items in the Backer Beta. One of the major focuses for the team over the past few weeks was adding in additional character progression options and cleaning up UI to make combat a little less chaotic.

You can expect everything from additional Talents and Ability selection choices to UI and HUD improvements in our next update. We are also very close to getting the Mac and Linux versions of the Backer Beta to you guys. It may even make it into the next Beta update.

Plea for Surveys

Even though we have locked down backer rewards on the portal, we are still able to add in memorial and credit text into the game. If you have memorials or backer credits, and you haven't filled out your survey, please head over to the backer portal and fill them out.

Pillars of Eternity - J.E. Sawyer About the Delay

Project director J.E. Sawyer has taken some time on the Obsidian forums to explain the reasons and the timing of the announcement of Pillars of Eternity's delay to 2015, and also took the opportunity to explain what the team is currently working on, which includes, among other things, a restructuring of the ability and talent advancement for all classes, a revision of the current XP rewards system, a review of the game's narrative and some visual polishing of character models and animations.

Thursday - October 02, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Delayed to 2015

by Couchpotato, 21:12

Seems the members who wanted Pillars of Eternity to be delayed got their wish today as Obsidian announced the game is delayed to sometime in 2015.

Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive announced today that the highly anticipated fantasy role-playing game Pillars of Eternity, originally scheduled for release in late 2014, has been delayed until early 2015.

Feedback through the beta process from those who backed Pillars of Eternity on Kickstarter has been extremely helpful. The development team are listening to the feedback and are incorporating changes to ensure fans absolutely get the best game possible. This short delay will allow Obsidian to produce the quality of game that they can be rightly proud of.

"Since the very beginning of this project we promised our fans and ourselves that we would release this game only when we knew it would be absolutely ready for the best experience possible. We're very close to that point, but not quite there yet. The feedback we have received through our playtest process has been invaluable to us. We are coming into the home stretch but are pushing the release out just a bit to make sure we honor that promise we made originally.Thanks for your patience and support, it will be worth the wait." – Feargus Urquhart, CEO Obsidian.

Both Obsidian and Paradox are aware of the anticipation the thousands of people who donated to the Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter campaign have, many of whom have been clamoring for a game in the style of classic role-playing games for years. And, rest assured, no one is more anxious for the completion and release of this game than we are. However, we are excited to get the extra time to incorporate the feedback and add additional polish.

Your enthusiasm and support has been energizing for everyone and we're just as excited as you are for this game to come out and kick this new renaissance of classic style CRPG's into high gear!

Friday - September 26, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - New Backer Beta Patch

Hey, guys. It has been a while so I wanted to let you know that we are still working on a new patch for you guys. There are still some issues we want to iron out, but we are hoping we can put a new patch out sometime in the next few days. Once things look a little more locked down I will add more info.

Based on information from a few posters here are some the upcoming fixes.

Pillars of Eternity - Backer Beta Preview Video

Imagine a world in which a beetle - nay, a nasty mob of beetles - could utterly and completely destroy your party of armed adventurers, some capable even of using magic. This is that world: Pillars of Eternity. And man, can this game be challenging.

It's all as intended by developer Obsidian Entertainment, of course, because this is a game for old-school RPG fans - fans of Baldur's gate, Icewind Dale. Those are the people who funded the game on Kickstarter after all.

The game is in Backer Beta form now, which means you can play it if you backed the game with your money. You can't buy in, as with an Early Access program.

There's loads about the game that will still change. This process of allowing people to play is intended to reap lots of feedback, and to alter and hone the game based on it.

Pillars of Eternity, the full version, has a winter 2014 release date.

Saturday - September 20, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update # 85

Obsidian posted the latest update for Pillars of Eternity with new information on backer fulfillment, Beta feedback, and talk about wrapping the game up.

Update #85: Hunkerin' Down and Hey, Wasteland 2 is Out!

With the backer beta out now, and the *con season (Gamescom, PAX, Gen Con, et al.) coming to a close for the year, we wanted to give you an update on what we've been up to. We’re busy working on three big things: 1) getting everything on the fulfillment side ready to go, 2) working through many changes and improvements based on feedback from folks playing the backer beta, and 3) wrapping up the game proper.

Fulfillment

As of this week, we’re busy finishing and/or approving all of the final designs for nearly all of the physical rewards so production can begin. It’s very exciting to see this all coming together and often isn't part of the process we get to be involved in at such a deep level on our other projects. It’s one thing to have a playable game here in the studio that we continually maintain – it’s another to be able to really help design the look, feel, and content of every little bit of what comprises a game that ultimately will ship out to you.

Here’s a sample of what the collector’s edition box is going to look like for backers:

In future updates we’ll show some of the other goodies.

We’ve been working really closely with the great folks at Dark Horse who are putting together the finishing touches on the amazing Collector’s Book for the game, and the equally great folks at Prima are busy working on the strategy guide. We’re working with the same author from the Fallout: New Vegas strategy guide, which we’re very excited about!

Backer Beta Feedback

A very big THANK YOU to all of those playing the backer beta and providing feedback on our forums! We’re focusing on a lot of changes right now based on your feedback – big improvements to pathfinding and combat, some significant changes to scouting and stealth and how they work, and we’re doing a lot of reviews on the game’s UI and overall presentation to improve the experience. Expect to see a lot of changes coming in on the beta over the coming weeks. Again, thank you to all of you providing feedback – we really appreciate it. We have folks internally who are scouring every single post and thread daily to move bugs and other feedback into our bug tracking system internally.

Wrapping the Game Up

Over the next several weeks, the team is focusing on a couple key things: area and quest finalization and plowing through the many final tasks and bugs. To keep things “old school”, we’re even employing the Quest Whiteboard of Baldur’s Gate 2 and Icewind Dale fame, where all of the quests in the game are posted on a very visible whiteboard in the office, and designers and QA fight (to the death?!) to certify that quests are 100% done and clean, by removing the evil X’s in their respective department columns. In this case, two X’s enter, ZERO X’s leave. That’s the goal anyway. Here it is as it was finished being set up - note, each item on this board can have many steps and states that all have to be checked before the X can come off for the entire thing.

Pillars of Eternity - Sensuki's Suggestions

Greetings, all. Today we’re going to talk about the Attribute system in Pillars of Eternity. Traditionally, CRPGs have suffered from certain issues with character attributes that PoE’s Lead Designer, Josh Sawyer, believes detract from the character creation and gameplay experience – namely, the problem of certain classes being pigeonholed into pumping certain attributes to function properly, and the existence of dump stats. To that end, the attribute system in Pillars of Eternity is designed with a few fundamental design goals in mind:

All attributes should be useful (in some way) for every class.

No dump stats – that is, no stat should be overwhelmingly better or worse than the others.

These design goals aim to fix some systemic problems with the traditional D&D-based attribute systems. These design goals are admirable and worthwhile, and we believe that if realized, they will make Pillars of Eternity a richer and more rewarding experience. Unfortunately, the current attribute system fails to meet these goals. In particular, Perception and Resolve are simultaneously not useful for all classes/character archetypes, and are also very widely considered to be dump stats in most cases. However, this can be fixed. I (Sensuki) came up with a solution about two weeks ago and after many days consulting with Matt516 on the mathematical, logical, and balance issues with this solution, we have produced this paper.

Pillars of Eternity - Preview Roundup

It is undeniably a strange - and wonderful - time to be a lover of sprawling, tabletop-inspired RPGs. And despite the issues, expected issues, in the beta, looking past it I think it’s easy to see that the building blocks and Pillars of Eternity’s foundations are very, very solid. Obsidian is promising a lot, and this teaser already fulfils a lot of them, even when it’s a bit shaky.

I'm sorely tempted to play more, to experiment with different classes - especially the Cipher, Pillars of Eternity’s weird telekinetic warrior - and try to get used to the combat more, but I also don't want to spoil the main course. The beta has whet my appetite, but I think I’ll be taking a break from it so that I can properly devour it at launch.

As always, the fact that this is a beta is a pretty good bulwark against criticism, even if its winter 2014 release window looms ever larger. Much can and will change over the coming months, and the combat balancing in particular is most definitely a work in progress.

What is clear is that those who backed Project Eternity on the promise of a thoroughbred RPG that embraces the classic D&D model, if not the actual license, aren't likely to be disappointed. Even at this early stage, and with only a few hours of gameplay to its name, Pillars of Eternity already feels generous, compelling and rich.

Pillars of Eternity is the throwback that old-school RPG fans have been craving, but with modern production values that will let it shine on powerful gaming rigs. With myriad gameplay systems to sink your teeth into and an epic, branching storyline penned by some of the industry’s best talent, this is one of the most promising RPGs in production right now.

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ PC Gamer

I know this is a faithful homage to the Infinity Engine RPGs of yore, because I’ve been on the character creation screen for almost an hour. It’s an overwhelming sea of options—exactly as it should be—and I can’t decide what kind of person I want to be. In the end I settle for an aumaua, a race of tall semi-aquatic beings with blue-green skin and tribal markings on their faces. Their size gives them a +2 might bonus, which makes them powerful fighters.

Saturday - September 06, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Beta Build 278 is Live

by Couchpotato, 06:18

Brian Adler of Obsidian Entertainment has a new post on the forums for Pillars of Eternity that a new patch for the beta version is now available.

We have put the new Backer Beta update live. Have fun, guys, and thanks for all of the hard work you have put in when reporting issues. It really makes a huge difference and we are getting lots of great info.

Click the link above for the full list of fixes, and changes.

Save/Load

Items disappearing on save/load and transitions has been fixed

Fixed a problem where quests/tasks are lost when loading while in a game

Saving games no longer causes the zoom in/out feature to function improperly

Currency, Quest items, Crafting items, and Camping Supplies are no longer placed in the inventory after loading a game

Status icons no longer revert to temp icons and text after loading a game

Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay

Adventurers can now be hired at levels above level 1

Characters no longer get stuck in attack or casting animation loops

Health values are no longer the same for all classes

Deep Wounds effect is no longer dealing large amounts of damage

Paladin's Zealous Charge is no longer slowing/rooting characters after saving

Fix to an issue where weapons would occasionally disappear on start of new game on slower machines.

Tuesday - August 26, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ Hooked Gamers

by Couchpotato, 05:59

If you want to read another preview of Pillars of Eternity then head on over to Hooked Gamers where Derk Bil gives his opinion on the beta version.

No doubt nostalgia is having its wicked ways with me - it has been a while since anyone made a game like this, on a scale like this - but I found the designs, atmosphere and feel of Pillars of Eternity simply astonishing. The interface remains true to the Infinity Engine classics but still manages to feel modern. Pillars of Eternity leaves no doubt that the original artists behind legendary games such as Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale are pulling all the strings. Having witnessed the game in action has made me giddy in anticipation.

Sunday - August 24, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Crowdfunding Open

by Couchpotato, 05:17

Developer Darren Monahan has a new post on thePillars of Eternity forum with news they have extended the closing date for backers only for this weekend.

New Backers: To make sure new backers can get their pledges in, we're allowing new backers to create pledges throughout the weekend. On Monday morning our time at about 10:30 AM (PDT) we'll close off new backers and will move to pre-ordering soon thereafter.

Existing Backers: If you're an existing backer and haven't confirmed your pledge order yet (you should have hopefully received an e-mail nag from us today about that if not!) please do so as time permits! To complete your pledge order, head to the Backer Portal and click on the Select Reward button to start.

Friday - August 22, 2014

RPGWatch - Pillars of Eternity Presentation

by Myrthos, 22:46

Last week I was at Gamescom and one of the meetings was with Josh Sawyer and Adam Brennecke for Pillars of Eternity. They walked me through the backer beta in 30 minutes. In this article you can find what it was they said about the game.

The backer beta starts in the village of Dyrford, it is a side area in the game and not plot critical. The village is built on top of an old settlement and comes with a dungeon below it. In the village there is a backer defined inn, named The Dracogen Inn, where we find the barman Dengler, named after one of their backers, to rent a room for sleeping. Compared to the Inifinity Engine games, sleeping works differently in PoE. They wanted to make sure the inns in PoE were a bit more compelling to use. As a result your party will get a long term buff when sleeping in one of the better bedrooms of the inn and the more exclusive your room, the better the buff. You can also sleep everywhere outside of an inn if you have camping equipment in your inventory. Sleeping outside is safe and will not get you attacked but will remove any buff you received from sleeping at the inn. They feel this makes sleeping more about the strategic choices of using limited camping resources and not about a random chance of being attacked.As in the Infinitty Engine games, sleeping restores all your health and the spells you might have used.

Thursday - August 21, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Hands-On @ RPS

by Couchpotato, 06:22

Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted an new hands-on preview of Pillars of Eternity. I expect more previews will follow in the coming weeks so be ready everyone.

Nostalgia may be the initial draw, for some of the audience at least, but Pillars doesn’t map directly onto any of the Infinity engine games. The layers of interaction and intricacy of class roles are evidence of a developer comfortable with the familiar, and able and willing to flex the creative muscles where appropriate. It may be partly an exercise in nostalgia and looking backwards but, along with Original Sin and a few other potential bright spots, Pillars is making me super excited about the future of CRPGs for the first time in years

Greetings, and welcome, at long last, to the Backer Beta! We appreciate all the support our backers have given us on the long road that started with our Kickstarter campaign. Now it's time to take a look at what we've been working on, shake it up, and see how things can be improved.

Before you dive in, I'd like to talk a bit about the nuts and bolts of the Backer Beta, what content is available, what you won't be seeing, things we're most interested in hearing feedback on, and known issues.

Tuesday - August 12, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Crowdfunding Ending

by Couchpotato, 06:19

According to a post on PC Gamer the Pillars of Eternity crowdfunding campaign wraps up next week. As for me I thought it was already over last year.

Believe it or not, the Pillars of Eternity crowdfunding campaign is still underway. Obsidian raised nearly $4 million for the game on Kickstarter, but while that effort came to an end in October 2012 it's still possible to back the project directly through the developer. But not for much longer.

It all comes to a close on August 22, after which you'll only be able to preorder the game at full price. That's also the date on which Obsidian will "lock down" all backer reward tiers, along with any remaining surveys for in-game credits and memorial stones, so it can get on with the manufacturing process. Physical add-ons to existing Pillars of Eternity orders, like mouse pads or playing cards—and yes, you can buy Pillars of Eternity playing cards if that's your thing—will also no longer be available after the 22nd.

The studio clarified a few points about the Pillars of Eternity backer beta as well. It will go live on August 18 exclusively through Steam, but the keys will only be good for the beta version of the game, so players who want a DRM-free version of the final release will still be able to get one. The backer beta will initially be exclusive to Windows, but Mac and Linux versions are expected to follow within a few weeks.

Saturday - August 09, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #83

Obsidian Entertainment shares infomation about the beta of Pillars of Eternity, and mentions how backers can get their Wasteland 2 keys in the games latest update.

Backer Portal, Backer Beta, and Wasteland 2 Keys

We have some important information for you regarding the Backer Beta and how to manage your pledge. We also have exciting news for you regarding Wasteland 2 keys and how you can get your key from the backer portal. Our next update will be focused on how to redeem your Eternity beta keys and special Backer Beta information.

Important Backer Information

A few very important changes will be happening on August 22nd.

First, we will be ending the crowdfunding period for Eternity. This means that as of August 22nd, you will only be able to preorder the game and will be unable to back the game at reduced prices. If you have already backed the game before August 22nd this won't have any effect on you, but if you would like to back an additional copy of the game at reduced prices or buy any add-ons, please make sure you do it before August 22nd.

Second, we are completely locking all tiers on August 22nd. This is necessary so we can start the manufacturing process for the various fulfillment rewards.

We are going to completely lock down all surveys as well. We locked these surveys a few months ago for anyone that had in-game content (items, NPCs, inns, etc.), but we were still allowing people to enter in content for their credits and memorial stones. So, if you have any remaining credits or memorial stone surveys to finish, please do so before the 22nd.

Wasteland 2

If you backed a tier which included a Wasteland 2 key we have exciting news for you. Starting now, you can head over to the Products tab in your Account Profile to snag your Wasteland 2 Steam key. Please note: Only Steam keys are presently available. If you want Wasteland 2 on GOG, that won’t be available until InXile has released the game.

Tuesday - August 05, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - New Interview & Preview

Pillars of Eternity is a game out of time. More than a decade since the release of the last Infinity Engine game, Icewind Dale II, Obsidian’s Kickstarted RPG is simultaneously a step backwards and forwards. It’s like looking at a game from the 90s, if games in the 90s had been really, really, ridiculously good looking.

I’m not saying Pillars of Eternity is outdated. I’m saying I’ve been starved of sprawling, reactive RPGs for years. Obsidian are bringing them back to the table. At some point publishers decided I wanted more expensive cinematic and, as a result, linear stories. Pillars isn’t that.

Saturday - August 02, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ RPG Codex

Sensuki: In a recent interview with Norwegian gaming site gamer.no, Pillars of Eternity was stated to be "larger, yes, easily larger, than Icewind Dale. We're not quite up to Baldur's Gate 2 size, but it's close". What elements of Pillars of Eternity are up there with Baldur's Gate 2 specifically? (e.g. Length of the crit path, Amount of optional content, Number of Exterior Areas, Quest Complexity, etc.) How would you say you've done regarding Wilderness area scope? Which in the stretch goal thread was slated to be "slightly larger than BG2".

Josh Sawyer: Number of overall areas is getting close to BG2. I think we now have over 150 maps with a healthy split between cities, dungeons, towns, and wilderness maps. I'm happy with the number of wilderness areas we have. I think there will be good content density in them and there are enough of them off the critical path that players will feel rewarded for exploring.​

And a quote about designing Talents:

Talent Design has been something you have left for the latest stages of development. How is that coming along? Do you have any overall design principles for the design of Talents in PE?

[Josh Sawyer] We don't currently have many Talents because they are highly dependent on player feedback. Talents can either extend or modify standard class abilities or they can grant access to outliers that may or may not fall within any single class. Broad Talents like Weapon Focus simply grant accuracy with categories of weapons. Any class could make use of that Talent. A Talent like Grimoire Slam depends heavily on the character using a grimoire, i.e. being a wizard. Thankfully it's pretty fast and easy to implement a lot of Talents, so we should be able to have a quick turnaround following our Backer Beta.​

Wednesday - July 30, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ RPS

In the second and final part of a conversation with Josh Sawyer of Obsidian (part one), we discuss how the design of Pillars of Eternity differs from Fallout: New Vegas. That involves a discussion of New Vegas’ post-release support, official and otherwise, and the pros and cons of traditional RPG systems. Of particular note – why Pillars of Eternity does not have a Speech skill, or any other skill of that sort.

With contributions from executive producer Brandon Adler, we also discuss the role of Paradox as publisher and the benefits of digital distribution, and end with a tribute to nineties RPG, Darklands.

Pillars of Eternity - New Interview & Previews

Kickstarter funded Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera from InXile, and Pillars of Eternity and its expansion pack from Obsidian - essentially plotting out the second Infinity Engine Age in advance.

For Obsidian, the hope is that initial kick will be enough to see them through Eternity’s sequel, too.

“That’s the dream of any independent developer,” said project director Josh Sawyer. “That they get the cash reserves that they don't need to ask anybody for money.”

“What I would like, and this is true of any independent developer, is for this title and the expansion to be successful enough that we don't have to go back to Kickstarter to make the sequel,” Sawyer told PCGamesN.

Project Eternity’s campaign in October, 2012 raised $3,986,929 in a month - more than tripling the developers’ initial goal.

“That was rapido,” recalled Sawyer. “The rate that the campaign took off, we did not expect it. At all. We had to come up with where we wanted to take it very, very quickly.

“We had two or three stretch goals planned. We launched it on a Friday and we had to come in on the Saturday and discuss how we were going to approach it.”

While “very rewarding”, Sawyer said it was “hard to describe” just how gruelling the Kickstarter process is.

“That process is something I could never look forward to but the overall result of it can be very effective. I wouldn't shy away from using it in the future if I thought here's an idea for a game that a publisher's not going to touch.”

If it seems like Obsidian is taking extra care with Pillars of Eternity, it's probably because they have big plans for the series going forward. Should it prove to be a hit, they will move forward with a sequel, and possibly other games like it. Sawyer isn't willing to say that Obsidian will only focus on isometric RPGs from now on, but it's apparent that they've found a business model they like.

Even now Pillars of Eternity looks like the real deal, though Sawyer assures me that there's still work to be done getting it ready for a planned launch sometime late this year. Still, what I saw was enough to leave me with a big smile on my face. Obsidian don't want a simple retread of past glories, instead they're taking a beloved genre and looking closely at what it did well and what its weaknesses were.

Sunday - July 27, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ IGN

When Obsidian developers Josh Sawyer and Brandon Adler ask to drop by the IGN office, you make time to see what they’re up to. The creators of such classics RPGs as Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale (and more recently, South Park: The Stick of Truth) have a resumé littered with memorable role-playing games that all feature impressive depth, breadth, and overall variety. Their latest is Pillars of Eternity, and if it fulfills its promises, it’s sure to keep me in the world of Eora for a long time to come.

Pillars of Eternity was, briefly, gaming’s most successful Kickstarter, at least in terms of funds raised. Like many crowdfunded games, particularly in the early days, it’s a project driven partly by nostalgia. A party-based fantasy RPG in the style of Baldur’s Gate and the other Infinity Engine D&D games, it has a strong heritage to live up to. Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer is the director of the game and I spoke to him late last week about theology, flagellant monks, freedom from licensing and respecting player’s choices. We also talked about his desire to make a historical RPG and his previous work, particularly the design of Fallout: New Vegas.

It's no secret I'm pretty excited for Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's spiritual successor to 1990s CRPG classics like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. In the past I've gone to Obsidian's headquarters to check out the game and chat with project lead Josh Sawyer, and then I saw a second demo at E3.

This time I sat down with Josh Sawyer here in San Francisco to discuss character creation and...well, a lot of other stuff.

We're seeing a fair few nostalgia trips these days, blending old-school sensibilities with updated systems -- distilling the elements that made classics like Baldur's Gate and Fallout and Elite so utterly brilliant and updating everything to provide a smoother experience that feeds our rose-tinted desires and removes any clunkiness or mechanical cobwebs.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing indeed, and it carried Pillars of Eternity (just called Project Eternity back then) to the top of Kickstarter's funded list, giving Obsidian Entertainment the chance to pay homage to the Infinity Engine games that put so many of its employees on the map.

Last week, we got the chance to check out the game and chat to project lead Josh Sawyer, who delivered a half-hour presentation bringing us up to speed on where development currently sits. There'll be a preview coming shortly, but here's the presentation in full for now. Apologies for the awful visuals (had a slight tech fail on the day).

Pillars of Eternity - Another Preview Roundup

The demo came to a close, but not before the three-person adventuring party navigated an eerie temple, where black oozes, spiderlings, and a floor tile puzzle provided the biggest obstacles, while a choir chanted in the background and French horns called out their fanfares. The adventurers emerged into the Ruins of Cilant Lis, where they were greeted by a giant whirring magical device and the guardians protecting it. The game's title appeared on screen, leaving me to wonder if Pillars of Eternity will refresh role-playing traditions or simply replicate them--and whether pure replication is anything to scoff at, given the legacy of Baldur's Gate and its ilk. Nevertheless, I have faith not just in the strength of the Infinity Engine template, but in Obsidian's ability to use that template to craft a journey worth taking.

After spending some time with Pillars of Eternity, I love how it manages to tap into the nostalgia of old-school CRPGs with its numerous options and deep customization, while also bringing the genre into the 21st century with more dynamic environments, beautiful graphics, and faster combat. Pillars of Eternity promises to have something for everyone, and so far I’m confident Obsidian can deliver on that promise.

Everything about Pillars of Eternity seems to be hitting on the classic experience you would expect from an isometric view-RPG from the late '90s. There is an extensive character customization system that allows you to choose from races such as the traditional elf, dwarf, and human variety, but there is also a cone-headed race called the Godlike and several others unique to Pillars that change things up a bit. You'll gather loot, outfit your party with abilities and gear, and battle enemies using the game's active combat system.

Going off the game’s initial pitch on Kickstarter, of revisiting the popular classic RPGs of the Infinity Engine, what Pillars of Eternity has actually come to be surpasses what I would have expected. It’s instead aiming for an expansive richness and depth to practically every facet of the game, whether it’s the new fantasy setting and time period or the breadth of playable possibilities which the character creation tools can create.

Pillars of Eternity - Mini-Forum Round-up

Given I had some time, I've also decided to round up an assortment of interesting recent forum info. This is by no means a full social media round-up, but some of this stuff was interesting enough to deserve some space alongside what Sawyer said about the beta.

Pillars of Eternity - New Podcast @ Guy Cocker

On this week's podcast, games journalist Guy Cocker talks to Obsidian's Brandon Adler and Josh Sawyer about upcoming RPG Pillars of Eternity, and discusses the week's news, new releases, and the games they've been playing.

Thursday - July 17, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ Game Grin

With Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian has managed to strike a solid balance between nostalgia for Baldur’s Gate and its late nineties compatriots without ending up with a game that feels…well, dated. Admittedly, much of its appeal rides on players’ rose tinted affection for those old-school DnD-inspired RPGs (myself included), but the game is not without its own merits and feels more like a tribute than a misguided attempt at a resurrection. While its target audience is without a doubt gamers who were old enough to play Baldur’s Gate and its ilk when they first came out—or several years behind the curve, like me—Pillars of Eternity should still hold some appeal for newer gamers as well, if only because it gives them a look at a gameplay style that primarily died with Windows XP.

Thursday - July 10, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #82

Obsidian Entertainment has released the next update for Pillars of Eternity with more information on the games creatures, and the release of the games beta.

Creatures

Update by Rose Gomez, Associate Producer

Hello backers! In today's update, we'd like to show off a few of our creatures that you might have heard us talk about in previous updates. With the end of production getting closer every day, we have some news about our backer updates, and we’re also pleased to announce a date for the upcoming Backer Beta! In our next update, we’ll get into more detail about that.

Update Schedule

Hey, everyone. Brandon here. With production moving into the finalization phase for Eternity, the team and I are hunkering down to finish up the game over the next few months. Going forward, we will be spacing out our backer updates a bit more from now until the project ships. They’ll come a bit less predictably, but you can still expect updates as we have big announcements or special news for you. This will really help us focus as much of our efforts into putting out the best game we possibly can for everyone.

In our next big update, we will discuss the upcoming Backer Beta in more detail as well as what it will entail and how to redeem your copy.

Speaking of the Backer Beta...

Backer Beta

We will be releasing our Backer Beta on August 18th. As we mentioned above, we will get into all of the specifics about the Backer Beta in our next update. Be on the lookout for it over the next month.

Tuesday - July 08, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Beta Release Date

by Couchpotato, 10:35

A short post on the forums for Pillars of Eternity has news from BAdler the baker beta version of the game will be released on August 18th.

Hey, everybody. I just wanted to announce that we have decided on a release date for the Backer Beta: August 18th. We will discuss all of the particulars in a formal Kickstarter announcement, but we wanted you to hear about it first.

Thursday - June 26, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #81

Each class holds the line in its own way. As covered in Update 52, the monk absorbs damage to fuel special attacks through the use of accumulated Wounds. These attacks can stun, push, or weaken individuals or small groups around them. While monks have to be monitored to ensure their Wounds do not overwhelm them, they can absorb a large amount of punishment and hamper enemy movement on the battlefield. In contrast, the fighter holds the line the traditional way: by standing her ground, blocking opponents, and being infuriatingly difficult to knock out. Barbarians are designed to jump into the fray swinging wildly. Lacking the accuracy and strong Deflection of the fighter, the barbarian makes up for his lack of discipline through sheer speed, savagery, and abilities tailored for fighting groups of enemies. We've already covered the monk's Wounds and how they play into their use, but the other two front line classes differ in how they stem the enemy tide and how players monitor and use them over the course of combat. To show you how they differ, let's look at the details.

If one of Pillars of Eternity's eleven classes is the rock (we'll skip the obvious "pillar" joke), it's the fighter. All across Eora, fighters are known for their discipline, skill, and durability. In the Eastern Reach, they are often employed as caravan guards, soldiers, and personal bodyguards. Accustomed as they are to long marches, strange places, and life on the road, all fighters gain a minor skill bonus to Athletics, Lore, and Survival.

Sunday - June 22, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - More Previews & Screenshots

I left the small cubicle and out of the convention center entirely and into the sweltering heat of downtown Los Angeles after the demo concluded. I wished it was winter. Not because it was too hot out--even though it was--but because Pillars of Eternity is smack in the middle of beta and won't be released until the end of this year.I got the sense that Sawyer and his team were walking a thin line between simplifying a complicated genre while still retaining the depth that made it a beloved genre in the first place. As brief as the demo was, I felt that they were walking that line just fine.

Pillars of Eternity is certainly shaping up to be something special. The game is pegged by Obsidian as being a similar scale as Baldur’s Gate, which means there’s a huge game being made here, and from a technical point of view, it looks stunning – especially when you add that it’s being made in Unity, with very reasonable system requirements and will ship on Windows, Mac and Linux. I’ve worked with Unity as a developer and played a lot of games made with it and frankly I’ve never seen anything look this good from that engine – throw your preconceived notions out of the window about what a Unity game is.

Pillars of Eternity will feature hundreds of beautiful handcrafted environments, a robust combat system and a completely adjustable story filled with unique characters to recruit. While we were only privy to a small slice, it made us crave the entire pie. There’s so much to explore in this world and so many branching paths to be taken that Obsidian Entertainment may just have one of the most sought-after experiences on the market. While there is still no given release date, expect to play Pillars of Eternity sometime later this year on PC and Mac.

The Obsidian representative said that they modeled Pillars of Eternity after PC RPGs of the late 90s, in particular, Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. Players have a top-down view of the scenario before them, and like the original Baldur’s Gate, all combat is done in real time, but the player can pause the game before doling out orders to the party. They have also assured us that there are numerous dungeons and secrets scattered throughout the handcrafted world, and they emphasized that exploration will be crucial. In other words, this game has my name written all over it.

Friday - June 13, 2014

But since fantasy's isometric halcyon days, the genre has moved on. Fantasy games aren't niche retoolings of Dungeons and Dragons anymore – now the industry's Elder Scrolls, Dragon Ages and Dark Souls are front and centre at every expo and awards ceremony from E3 to Gamescom. We can chop zombies to bits in painstakingly textured, digitally hand-painted 3D these days, so what, if anything, do your top-down, text-rich RPGs have left to offer?

"Skyrim and Dragon Age are both great examples of high production values, each in its own way," says Null. "To achieve these levels of production value, it is usually necessary to cut certain 'old school' features from the equation. Party sizes get smaller, dialogue options become limited and combat is streamlined.

"Now I want to make it clear, I like [those games] for what they are. I also like, and miss, the older style RPGs I grew up on. Pillars of Eternity is being made for over 70,000 generous donors that apparently miss those games too."

Thursday - June 12, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update # 80

by Couchpotato, 05:09

Obsidian Entertainment has released the next update for Pillars of Eternity from E3 with a new video, and talks about the games Alpha & Beta.

From Alpha to Beta

Hey, everyone. Due to E3 crunch we are going to push off Josh's next class update for a couple of weeks. Instead, I will give an update about the general state of affairs for each department on the project now that we are getting ready to head into our Beta period. The next update will feature Josh's final class update along with info from the Eternity E3 presentation. Let's get into it.

Area Design

All of the areas have been in the game for about a month now, and the area designers have been revisiting each area to make sure everything is in order. They're using specially crafted Alpha checklists to make sure that none of the major items are missed. For example, designers are checking that the area has a proper navigation mesh, ambient sound effects are placed, and scene transitions are working as intended.

Josh (Project Director) and Bobby (Area Design Lead) are heading up meetings to review all of the quests in the game. Each quest is played through by the team and analyzed. We ask basic questions like "Why is this quest fun?", "Does the player care about this quest?", and "What hooks the player into starting the quest?" If anything is lacking, the design team spruces the quest up to make it a memorable one. Over the Beta period the designers will continue fixing bugs and polishing content.

Environment Art

Much like our area designers, our environment artists have been revisiting all of the areas of the game and performing their Alpha checklists to make sure all of the areas pass art Alpha. In addition to the checklists, they are performing polish work that had been identified previously by Bobby and Rob (Art Director) on areas.Currently, the environment artists have done a pass on all of our critical path areas and they will be moving onto our side content once we enter Beta.

Systems Design

Now that our systems are all in place, Josh has been focused on balance and polish bugs that have piled up over the course of the project. For me, this is one of the more exciting times in the project because the game really starts to take shape and become fun.Game balance will continue throughout our Beta period, right up to our release.

UI

Kaz (Concept and UI Artist) has been finishing up the last remaining UI screens. He is now working on Scripted Interaction images, icons, area paint-overs, and portraits and will be doing so for the foreseeable future.

Animation

The animation team has been wrapping up the last B priority items and will moving into full-time polish until the end of the project. B priority animations are things like special creature attacks, class-specific spell casts, or animations for minor creatures (animal critters, for example).Once the animation team has finished up creating the animations, they will be focused on animation polish.

Character Art

Our character artists have completed all of the creatures and creature variants we planned for the game (and even a few that we hadn't planned on). They have also created all of the base weapon and armor variants, and now character art is focused on finishing up all of the unique armors and weapons. Once they complete the last bit of gear, they will move onto creating a few additional head and hair variants for each race. Like the rest of the team, they will also be polishing content for the remainder of the project.

Narrative

The narrative team finished up the critical path a few weeks ago and now they have their focus on completing side content in our various regions. Eric (Lead Narrative Designer) has been tweaking and polishing the E3 demo areas, while Carrie (Narrative Designer) has been hard at work finishing up some of our companions. Narrative is also polishing up the areas that will be used in for our Backer Beta. Over the next few months narrative will finish our companions, and we are going to start finalizing and locking down on the writing to prepare for localization and voice over.

Programming

At this point, the project is completely feature locked. The programmers are fully focused on fixing the mountain of bugs that have built up over the course of the project. There are still some items that need to be finished (installers, for example), but the majority of the work will be put towards fixing and polishing existing systems. This is where the build (that may have been unstable throughout development) really starts to come together.

VFX

The team is continuing to crank away at VFX. It is one of the areas of the game (along with narrative and audio) that are not at an Alpha level, which is intentional. The later on the project that you can bring the VFX team on, the lower the amount of rework that they will have to do on assets that may get changed. We have added VFX on a little less than half of the spells and abilities, on all of our VFX creatures (creatures that are VFX driven instead of our normal creature pipeline), and on all of the critical path areas. We are scheduled to be finished with VFX in a couple of months.

Audio

Much like VFX, audio usually comes onto our projects a bit later than other departments. Many of our areas have had an ambience pass and are sounding really good. Same goes for our creatures - more and more of their SFX are being hooked up every day. We have also completed our initial pass on things like UI sounds, and very shortly, our audio team will create sounds for our spells and abilities. Justin (Audio Director) has been working on finishing all of the music tracks for the game. In fact, he just finished composing our main theme. Much like VFX, this audio team is scheduled to finish in a couple of months.

Overall

Overall, the project is coming together nicely. We have a ton of work that still needs to be done, but the team is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are no major roadblocks ahead of us at this point and now it's a focus on getting as much polish done as we can before our final release candidate.

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update # 79

Graphics and Rendering

Update by Adam Brennecke, Lead Programmer and Executive Producer

Over a year ago, in Update #49, we showed you the first movie of Pillars of Eternity. The movie showcased a beautiful scene in the Dyrwood complete with dynamic lighting, per-pixel occlusion, dynamic water and waterfall, and a day-night cycle. In this update I would like to give you an inside look on how these images are put together and rendered in the game, and I will cover new rendering features that we've added over the past year to address feedback from our backers about how our characters look in the scene. Warning: things might get technical!

E3

We are going to be going on update hiatus for the next three weeks as we prepare for E3 in Los Angeles. After E3, the next update will feature the final classes covering The Front Line (fighters and barbarians).

At E3, the team will be showing Pillars of Eternity at the Paradox booth behind closed doors. To avoid spoiling what we will be showing, we will be saving these moments until you get to play it. Because we want to include you in the experience, we will be taking photos at the booth, and in a future update we will be sharing more screenshots from the demo. To give you a small taste, here's a sneak peek at a scene that will be shown at E3:

Thursday - May 15, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Chanters & Priests

The next post-funding update for Pillars of Eternity has information about two more classes called the Chanter & Priest. The update also has two short video clips.

Update #78: The Leaders of the Band: Chanters and Priests

Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director

For our third class update, we will be covering chanters and priests. Along with paladins (covered in Update 56), these classes provide parties with their core support bonuses and healing effects. Different games refer to these types of characters using different terms -- usually "leader" or "support" -- but at their core, they excel when they are providing assistance to their teammates. The benefits they provide to the group often outstrip the contributions of individual party members in the final tally, but their abilities must be used carefully to maximize their impact.

Our next update will be from Adam Brennecke. He has some great graphical enhancements to share that we hope you'll enjoy. After that, our final class update will be on The Front Line: fighters and barbarians.

All three of the leader classes have a balanced suite of offensive abilities and though there is overlap in the effects of their various support abilities, they differ significantly in how they are used. Paladins utilize persistent auras to provide strong bonuses to allies in their immediate vicinity and limited-use single-target commands to grant powerful buffs to individual teammates. Chanters' phrases create a rotating cycle of bonuses that shift over the course of combat, building up energy until they can utter powerful invocations. Priests are traditional casters, relying on large area of effect bonuses mixed with small area offensive spells to direct combat from afar.

Saturday - May 03, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ JustPressStart

I was thrilled to be able to snag Project Lead Josh Sawyer from Obsidian Entertainment for a few minutes to get into some more detail about the upcoming RPG Pillars of Eternity. We talk about the intricacies of the combat system, ruminate on the challenges of creating a new world for gamers to explore, and relive the glory days of the Infinity Engine, during our conversation. The more I learn about Pillars of Eternity, the more excited I become, and the more impatient I get to actually play!

Wednesday - April 30, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #77

The next post-funding update for Pillars of Eternityis with Associate Producer Rose Gomez who talks about the games Art, and shares some new images.

Art in Alpha

Update by Rose Gomez, Associate Producer

Greetings backers! In today's update, we've got some great new character and area art for you to check out. Our artists have been hard at work creating beautiful new areas and lots of new armor for the game. Our next update will be the next chapter in the class series, all about chanters and priests, by Josh Sawyer.

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ RPG Codex

Speaking about games, you’re working on Pillars of Eternity: In your opinion, what are the differences between writing a book and writing for an RPG like Pillars of Eternity?

When you're writing a book, much of the process is between you and the voices in your head. Since games are collaborative, there's lots of play between narrative, level design, and art (oh, and programming!). That means that your contributions have to fit with the tapestry that everyone else is weaving, but it also means that you get to collaborate with incredible people with very different skills whose work will ultimately enhance yours.​

Can you tell us what you’re currently working on?

Currently, I'm writing dialogue for the end of the critical path.​This is sort of a process question. In speaking to other narrative designers, we understand that they are not the only ones that contribute to dialogue writing in a game: sometimes area designers contribute too. Does it work the other way around? Are you involved in writing and designing quests for Pillars of Eternity?

Most of the quests in Pillars of Eternity have received some level of area design implementation by the time they get a narrative pass. So the degree of wiggle room varies from one quest to another, but we always look for ways to tie the story and lore more closely to individual quests without discarding the excellent design work that's gone into them. This may mean changing the backstory of an NPC to make him more relevant, changing quest dialogue while keeping the quest's original sequence of events, or, sometimes, changing a few of the quest's steps to build a more engaging narrative. We always discuss larger changes to make sure that the end product results in a good story and a satisfying gaming experience.​What is the most interesting thing to you regarding the lore? Have you been able to contribute to the lore yourself?

Unfortunately, I can't share my favorite lore tidbit! But I love our take on the undead, which Eric Fenstermaker described in one of the project updates. Much of the lore was in place (in some form) before I started, but it tends to get tweaked and refined over the development process. When I've contributed to lore, it's most often involved taking components we already have -- creature designs, cultural traits -- and molding them into something specific that fits in our world (for instance, bestiary lore and tribal identities). It's like Top Chef for worldbuilding. Here are your ingredients! What can you do with them?​

One of the most important aspects of an RPG for many players is the quality of the writing and, especially in an Obsidian game, the companion dialogue. Working with Chris Avellone, Eric Fenstermaker and Josh Sawyer, does that leave you with any room to contribute companion dialogue as well? Anything that you can share or does Eric Fenstermaker just steal all of your best ideas and share them as his own?

I will be writing one or two of our companions, and this is one of the things I've looked forward to the most. I couldn't possibly agree that Eric steals my ideas (if I did, he'd probably steal my desk chair, too).​

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Newegg Arcade

Paul, Steve & our newest correspondent Nick travel to Irvine, California to talk with Obsidian Entertainment's Feargus & Josh. These gentlemen, especially Feargus, have quite a bit of experience with amazing IP like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars -- Knights of the Old Republic II, South Park -- The Stick of Truth & their newest RPG title: Pillars of Eternity. We were graciously corralled around the studio by Brandon who was keen to keep us out of places we shouldn't be filming ;) -- although we tried. We all had a spectacular time and enjoyed talking with their team. We also can't wait to get our hands on their new RPG, Pillars of Eternity.

Saturday - April 19, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ PC Gamer

Josh Sawyer is interviewd on PC Gamer to talk about world-building, magic, psychic warriors, and more for Pillars of Eternity. Here is a small sample of the interview.

PC Gamer: Memorable party characters are a big part of why people love Infinity Engine games. Do you have a favourite of the Pillars of Eternity companions?

Josh Sawyer: Well, there’s the one I’m working on now, Pallegina. We like to write our companions relatively late in development because it gives us time to react to stuff in the world. She’s cool because she has an interesting character arc and conflict. The game takes place in Dyrwood, which is a super European setting, and feels kind of like the Dalelands from Forgotten Realms. It’s very continental European, and it’s full of regular dudes and ladies going about their business. But one of the nearby countries, the Vailian Republics, are kind of like black renaissance Italians who have colonised this area. So her character is from that culture and she’s sworn to protect her homeland. But she thinks she can do it in more effective ways than she’s being told to.

Visually, she’s an interesting character, because she’s godlike. The godlike in this world are kind of like the planetouched in Forgotten Realms. She has aspects of a bird as part of her features. So she has feathers growing out of her face, and golden bird-like eyes. She’s very striking-looking and interesting, and she’s just been really fun to write. We have a lot of cool characters and a bunch of different writers are working on them, so it should be a neat mix.

PC Gamer: What kind of fantasy RPG standards or cliches are you trying to avoid or subvert?

Josh Sawyer: I just try to avoid doing things that I don’t personally like. For example, the class balance stuff was done because I’ve made a bunch of these games, and I’ve been playing D&D for most of my life, and I keep seeing very strong trends towards behaviour that I don’t think makes players happier. It doesn’t give them as much choice as the systems claim to give them, and I think we can do a better job. If someone wants to make a brilliant, weakling fighter, that is a build that is viable in our game, and it’s rewarded within the conversations and the fiction of the world. That’s not something that’s really true of playing Dungeons & Dragons.

If you want to make a muscle wizard, who is mighty and powerful and a stupid idiot, you can do that. Mechanically what happens is that you’ll do a lot of damage, but their durations and areas of effects will be very small. Then in conversation they’re total idiots. [laughs] You can bully people and you can pick them up off the ground and slap them around. It’s not like I’m setting out to subvert stuff. I play tabletop games with a lot of people who have really great ideas for characters, but mechanically they’re shitty characters. So when I try to fix that stuff, it’s not because I think it’s inherently better, but that it gives more opportunities to players to create more diverse characters, and feel rewarded for doing so.

Wednesday - April 16, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #76

The next post-funding update for Pillars of Eternity has information on the new Heartbleed bug , and has a lengthy update with Audio Director Justin Bell.

Music in Pillars of Eternity

Public Service Announcement by Darren Monahan, web guy

Before we get started on this week’s update, we wanted to make all of you aware of a very serious website vulnerability called “Heartbleed” that was discovered since our last update. This bug affected a huge number of sites and services across the internet, potentially exposing passwords and other sensitive information to hackers that understood how to exploit it.

Unfortunately, the Eternity website was running an affected version of this software, and as soon as we became aware of it, we took the appropriate steps to close the vulnerability. While we have no evidence or other reasons to believe any passwords or personal information was stolen, we do recommend you change your password if you have an account, especially if you reuse this same password on other sites.

Update by Justin Bell, Audio Director

Hello awesome backers. My name is Justin Bell and I’m the Audio Director at Obsidian, and the Audio Lead/Composer for Pillars of Eternity. I know a lot of you have been waiting patiently to hear some news about the game’s music. Thanks for waiting, I’m happy to say this update will focus entirely on music! In it we’ll cover the high level creative guidelines we’re using to write the score. I’ll also provide you with an in depth look into my music writing process. For those of you who are chomping at the bit for more info about the sound design for PoE, don’t worry... We’re going to do another update in the future that focuses on that as well. But for now, let’s talk about music!

Saturday - April 12, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Stevivor

by Couchpotato, 05:02

Stevivor had the chance to interview Feargus Urquhart about Pillars of Eternity, and talk about the Paradox Interactive distribution deal.

Steve Wright, Stevivor: First, before we get into what’s probably a set of obvious questions, let’s focus on Pillars of Eternity first. Can you give me a bit of a backstory on how the game came to be? Influences, design strategies, that sort of thing?

Urquhart: A lot of us worked at Black Isle, you know; that's where the five owners of Obsidian came from. We were the external producers on a lot of BioWare projects, which were Neverwinter Nights for 95% of its development, plus Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II. I did work on Shattered Steel, which was one of BioWare's first products.

Internally, we did Icewind Dale and its expansion packs, which were Infinity Engine games, and between Baldur's Gate… between the numbers of all these games, we're talking 10 to 15, maybe even 20 million units were sold between all of those. People enjoyed those games, and people remember them. To this day, people still walk up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed those games. And they just stopped being made.

We moved over to Obsidian, and indies really needed to start focusing on consoles; BioWare started focusing on consoles, and these games – not because people didn't want them – just stopped being made. And so that kind of went out of our heads for the next six or seven years. Then, John from GameBanshee, which is an RPG journalism, hobbyist kind of site, talked to me at E3, probably four years ago and asked why I wasn't making those games.

I really didn't have a good answer, other than I couldn't get them funded. We thought they'd be cool, I'd love to make them, and I'd still want to play them, though. Then the PC started to gain more Steam…

And then, Kickstarter blew up in 2012 with Double Fine and In Exile and the guys who made Shadowrun Returns, and us, with Pillars of Eternity. It was a chance for us to go back and make something that we loved, and we certainly can make that type of game. A modern version of it, that's something that we want to play. Luckily, people were totally in to it.

Wednesday - April 02, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #75

In the 75th update for Pillars of Eternity Obsidians talks about how they bring the creatues to life, or as they call the update "Animation on Pillars of Eternity."

Bringing Creatures to Life: Animation on Pillars of Eternity

Update by Rose Gomez, Associate Producer

Hello backers! After a successful week at GDC everyone is back in the office energized and inspired. This week we'll be taking a look at what the life of an animator is like on Pillars of Eternity, from what an average day looks like to how an animation goes from concept to being in the game.

In our next update, look forward to an update all about the audio design on Pillars of Eternity, featuring Justin Bell, our Audio Director.

As a reminder, the survey deadline has passed. If you still need to fill out your surveys, we encourage you to do so by going to the backer portal and completing your order. We will attempt to accommodate as many late surveys as we can, but we can't promise that the content will make it in to Pillars of Eternity. Late survey entries may have to go into a future Eternity product instead.

GameCrate

We have a bunch of new interviews and articles out on Newegg's new gaming site, GameCrate! GameCrate visited our offices in February for a behind the scenes tour of the studio and got to take a firsthand look at Pillars of Eternity. Take a look at their article, The Factory Level: Obsidian Entertainment to see what they experienced.

Check out what Josh had to say about the game in his interview here then take a look at an interview with Feargus here about the business side of Pillars of Eternity.

Sunday - March 30, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Josh Sawyer Interviews

by Couchpotato, 05:53

Josh Sawyer was a busy man at GDC 2014, and managed to get interviewed a few times about Pillars of Eternity. The first interview is from VG 24/7 where he talks about exploration, story, and murdering dudes.

“For people who like New Vegas but aren’t necessarily experienced with this, you know, six-party-member type of [RPG], I think they will appreciate how we reward their choices and allow them to branch and form alliances and screw up alliances with people,” Sawyer said.

“How we let them build reputation, I think they’re going to dig that. We’ve actually expanded that more than we have in previous games. You get personality-specific reputations, where if you’re an asshole repeatedly, you meet people who are, ‘Oh, you’re that huge asshole guy,’ Some people are like, ‘I love how you’re a fucking crazy asshole!’”

For Sawyer, the Pillars of Eternity experience is supposed to be truly about role-playing and all that has entailed from the tabletop era to now. In the common parlance, “role-playing elements” refers to stats and levelling and gear, but those things are not literally what role-playing is. They are methods of execution. And so there will be dungeon crawling, sure, yes, of course, but there will also be equally significant portions of exploration and dealing with NPCs.

The second interview is hosted at Games.on.net where he gives his opinion on how to deal with hardcore fans who are very picky, or as he calls them grognards.

We caught up with Josh Sawyer, project lead on Pillars of Eternity, in a brief moment of calm at this year’s GDC. He explained that Obsidian were undertaking a careful balancing act when it came to just how much weight to give the opinions of old-school RPG grognards.

“There are certain aspects of that that we think are okay,” said Sawyer. “For example we don’t have quest markers in Pillars of Eternity. At all. In our journals we try to be very descriptive and clear in our updates so that you can read them and figure out where you need to go but we don’t use quest markers. And we’re okay with that, because it’s a different style of exploring and feeling and figuring things out on your own.”

Sawyer warned however that other elements, what he described as “GM-sucker-punch kind of stuff”, were being carefully filtered by the team because “the vast majority” of Pillars of Eternity’s backers simply won’t enjoy them.

“Combat encounters that can only be completed a certain way or (situations where) you have to have one of these characters, or you have to have these two characters,” said Sawyer, “those ‘gotcha!’ moments that some gamers love, well… God bless you I guess, but we’re not gonna do that.”

Saturday - March 22, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Ausgamers

by Couchpotato, 05:36

Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer was interviewed by Ausgamers to answer a few questions about the recent Paradox deal, and other topics about Pillars of Eternity.

AusGamers: Now I don’t know how specific you can get on this but, how many separate projects are in the works at Obsidian now? Even with South Park wrapped, it seems like there must be a few? Has the team expanded significantly in recent years?

Josh: Recently it did expand, because South Park was winding down, so we’ve wrapped up on that, and of course we’ve just had our announcement about Armored Warfare, which there’s a lot of folks at Obsidian working on that. Then we always have other projects that are in progress -- things that we’ve started up and are working on in the background. So we always try to be a two or three project studio, and that will probably continue for the near future.

AusGamers: Has the creative freedom afforded by the crowdfunded Pillars of Eternity noticeably altered studio culture at all? Has there been a measurable envy from the devs working away on the big publisher licensed stuff, or do you even have strictly defined teams for each project in that sort of way?

Josh: Well I wouldn’t say it’s strictly defined, but people don’t just kind of float around. People will move over to our project sometimes then work on something else for a while and maybe come back later. Obviously it’s nice to be able to work with your own IP, but there are other certain nice advantages of working with someone else’s IP, but you know, the grass is always greener.

It’s very hard to build an IP from scratch. We’re not really making any bones of the fact that we’re trying to make a game that feels very much like Forgotten Realms; we’re trying to capture the feel of those old Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale games. So there is a certain framework to what we’re doing, that we’ve already pre-established, but even so, we do have a lot of freedom to make up things: we don’t have to run them by a publisher; we don’t have to run them by an IP holder; we’re the IP holder, we’re the ones making it.

Really we’re just beholden to the fans. So for example, early on when we were developing the races during the Kickstarter, something I talked about internally with people was: I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people that want to play elves and dwarves [laughs]; I’ve got a feeling a lot of people want to play those two races. I don’t necessarily know if anyone wants to play gnomes or halflings, so we’ll just kick those guys right out and make up some new races. But elves and dwarves I’m pretty sure people want to play those guys.

So it’s not about whether I personally like elves or dwarves, it’s about, if you played Baldurs Gate, you probably have some sort of an expectation of elves and dwarves. So we do still have sort of boundaries and restrictions about how to develop things, but it is nice to be able to take those in directions that we want to.

Thursday - March 20, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - GDC 2014 Press Conference

Paradox Interactive released a video from theGDC 2014 Press Conference with Fred Wester, and Feargus Urquhart. They even throw in a little game footage at the end.

Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive announced an exciting new partnership at GDC 2014 in San Francisco to launch the upcoming role-playing game (cRPG), Pillars of Eternity.

Watch the announcement with Fred Wester (CEO of Paradox) and Feargus Urquhart (CEO of Obsidian) as they discuss what roles each company will take on for the game, and why we're a great fit for each other!

Simply put, Paradox is assuming responsibility for the marketing and distribution of Pillars of Eternity. What this means is that Obsidian can now devote all of their time and resources to the development of Pillars of Eternity and make the game the best it can be.

Why Paradox?

Paradox has its roots in PC gaming and is known for publishing and developing some very niche titles. Like you, they’re fans of RPGs from the Infinity Engine days and have been around almost as long. Heck, some of them are even backers! If anyone can appreciate the passion and dedication of this project, it is certainly Paradox.

Will Pillars of Eternity still be released this year?

As communicated previously, we’re confident that Pillars of Eternity will be wrapped up by year’s end. The partnership has no influence over our projected launch date.

Next I have two new interviews with more information. So if you want more information that isn't biased like the RPS interview then read on.

"I feel like I could just call Paradox and say - excuse my language here - 'What the f***?!' I probably never would, but we could have a quick conversation about a situation and not do this dance. And that's great."

"

Paradox boss Fredrik Wester agreed. "It's a personal relationship that I feel works. This is not like our first awkward date. We've both been in the industry for a while, we know the ups and downs. We've both had some failures, both had some successes. We've both released some buggy games in the past and now we both want to release a really great gaming experience.

"Two or three years ago we had to publish games we couldn't really stand behind and that damaged our reputation, because we needed the cashflow," Wester added. "Now we're in a totally different position.

"If we don't think Pillars of Eternity is up to standard, we're going to tell these guys. And we're opinionated people, we're going to come back with tons of opinions. We have a QA team of eighteen people who're going to play the game for weeks and weeks and give their feedback."

Paradox and Obsidian will remain independent companies but will continue to foster their mutual relationship. Urquhart said he feels he can "call out" Paradox if something is uncomfortable, and both company heads are confident that lines of communication will be open and strong.

"This is a partnership between two strong independent companies that remain strong and independent," Wester said. "That's the reason we're doing this. We also want to build a new genre within the RPG genre as well, and we will work long-term with Obsidian to build that new genre and grow a community."

"You can feel independent even if you're owned by someone else," he added. "We are both privately held and centered around small ownership groups, and because of that it's much easier to get along. We've eliminated a lot of the initial threats to the relationship not working. We can focus on the thing that matters, and that is the game."

Wednesday - March 19, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ RPS

by Myrthos, 12:24

Rock Paper Shotgun talked to Feargus Urquhart and Fred Wester the respective CEOs of Obisdian and Paradox on the publishing deal for Pillars of Eternity, potential other opportunities for Paradox and the bugs in South Park: The Stick of Truth.

RPS: But it’s an interesting situation to be in. The notion of publishing a Kickstartered project is new. One of the things that you don’t necessarily know is, you had all this interest in the Kickstarter, but is that the full amount of interest for the game? Did everyone who might have thought about buying the game contribute their bit?

Wester: No, not really. For everyone who will pay up front for the game, there are 10 who will buy the finished game. That’s always the math. I wouldn’t call this a traditional publisher-developer relationship either, because that’s very important to emphasize. This is more of a partnership between two strong and independent companies. When we truly publish a game, we go in and fund it from day one and we have a lot of things that… This is a project from Obsidian, by Obsidian, with help from Paradox to bring it to market and reach the maximum audience. It’s different.

Urquhart: I hate the use the way to associate… It’s almost a mindkill for me to say this, but I don’t want to associate the idea of Kickstarter with preorders… It’s not the same thing. However, it is kind of the same. There’s a certain similarity in some ways. There are only so many people who go out and preorder a game versus the people who end up paying for the game, ultimately end up buying the game. It’s just different. So these are the people that… I would love to say that I could say ice to the Eskimos, but I can’t. People need to see proof of something and its success before they buy it. And maybe it’s just our gut. We’ve been doing this a while. Our gut and our hope is that this will work. We could have a conversation in however long and say, whoops, we were wrong! And we’d still be drinking beer and crying.

Wester: On the other hand, it wouldn’t be the first time we were wrong either, so it’s not a big deal that way. I would be kind of devastated if this project tanked, though. When you look at it, it fulfills all the boxes for me as an old-school RPG player. If the game is crap, of course it’s going to fail. But if the game is good and we still don’t reach that audience we want to reach? I would be disappointed. I think this game deserves to be played by a lot of people.

....

RPS: There’s the slight elephant in the room, which is that on consoles especially, South Park had some complaints about bugs and glitches and whatnot. What ended up happening there? You’ve been pretty adamant recently about having QA locked down. How did a rather worrisome number of bugs slip through so easily?

Urquhart: There were some bugs and some glitches. I don’t mean to sweep it under the rug. All in all, it was a pretty solid game, though. Everyone who bought the game could finish it.

RPS: That’s kind of a low bar, though…

Urquhart: I’m not saying that’s the whole bar. But the first thing to say is, when we talk about this whole thing about how, oh, it’s buggy… 13 hours after it was on Steam, I had people emailing and saying, your game is awesome! So obviously it worked and it worked well. On the console side of things, I can also tell you… It’s hard for me. I can’t give you any exact things, because it’s all one person saying it’s buggy and another person saying it’s not.

All I know, which I even told Fred earlier, is that we passed PS3 with zero points. When we submitted to Sony in America, we got zero points. Which is, you can have 20 points on their scale and get approved. We passed with zero. So on a scale of how buggy [it was or wasn't], to me it was a pretty solid game.

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #74

The lastest post-funding update for Pillars of Eternity was posted on the games website with information on a new publisher deal, and talks about Wizards & Druids.

Thanks for sending in the link purpleblob, and make sure the rest of you read the full update for more information. Here is the video part with Josh Sawyer.

Partnership

A few minutes ago, Obsidian made an important announcement about a new partnership with Paradox Interactive for Pillars of Eternity. We wanted to give some information to our backers to give you a full understanding of what this partnership means and to let you know that nothing has or will change when it comes to the making of Eternity. Pillars of Eternity is still our product, we're making 100% of the development decisions, and we will still be communicating directly with you every chance we get.

So, you are probably asking, why are we doing this? Obsidian is really good at making games. Everyone here is focused on that goal every day and we are heavily invested in our work. That said, Obsidian's focus is in creating games and not in marketing and distributing them. It takes a lot of time and effort to do those things properly - time and effort we want to use to make Eternity the best game it can be. We chose to partner with Paradox because they can help us with those things and really believe in PC games in particular. This lets us spend 100% of our time (and your money) towards making Eternity great. Every dollar you have given us will to go into making the game.

We have setup a FAQ on our forums that will go over any questions you may have about what this partnership means for Pillars of Eternity. Please take a look and let us know if you have any other questions. And now, on to the magic of the mob rulers!

Tuesday - March 11, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Developer Forum Q&A

Adam Brennecke hosted a Q&A session on the Pillars of Eternity forums. If you have any you want answered it's not to late to join in. He might still respond to them.

Adam at Work

Hey Everyone,

I'm working all day today (yup it's Sunday, and I have no life). Feel free to ask some questions about Pillars of Eternity, or being a programmer/producer at Obsidian, and I'll do my best to answer them. Some things I can't answer - sorry in advance!

Today, I'm working on a few odds and ends - bug fixing and miscellaneous features. Right now I'm looking into an occasional bug that causes party members to get stuck-in-place permanently after they get knocked down. That's no fun, so I'm going to fix it.

Anyone get a chance to play South Park: The Stick of Truth yet? I'm looking forward to doing a complete play through hopefully soon.

Wednesday - February 26, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #73

Narrative Design: A Day in the Life, Companion Goals, & Undead

Hey everybody. I'm Eric Fenstermaker and I'm the lead narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity. Before this I held the same position on South Park: The Stick of Truth, so if the dialogue in Eternity ends up being a long string of obscenities and fart jokes, you know who to blame. You can direct all hate mail to my work email account, [email protected]

I know we suggested last week that I was going to give you a lore update, but I thought, this is a crowdfunded project. Why not completely fail to deliver on what was promised and instead give our backers something no one asked for?

I have three things for you today - the first is a look at what my daily experience is like, then I'm going to talk a bit about some high-level goals we have for writing our companion characters, and finally I might just have some lore about Eternity's undead.

On the next episode of Pillars of Eternity: Josh Sawyer writes a class update about wizards and druids, and Adam meets a wacky goblin neighbor only he can see!

Monday - February 24, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Joshua Sawyer Video

Answering truewarriorpoet's question on tumblr: "What are some cliched rpg or d&d tropes you are personally tired of seeing, and how do you plan on creating your own vision in PoE so it introduces familiar but unique twists on them?"

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #72

Death Godlike and Expected Ship Date

For this update, we've got some awesome new character, area, and concept art that we're excited to show. However, before we get to the art, we wanted to officially update everyone that we are looking good to release Eternity by Winter 2014. So, look forward to getting your hands on Pillars of Eternity later this year.

Stretch Goals

After much discussion and consideration of the poll on our forums we have decided not to pursue any additional stretch goals. Rest assured that the team is working hard on completing the game and including our current stretch goals.

Surveys

Our designers are working hard to implement the designs that our higher tiered backers have come up with. If you have a survey that needs to be filled out, please do so by March 31st. It's important that you get your surveys completed by the deadline because we are closing in on Alpha quickly. The team needs ample time to get your content into the game. We can't guarantee your in-game contribution will make it into the game if you are late. This includes inn/tavern designs, adventurer party designs, portraits, NPCs, and items/weapons, so make sure you get your idea in before the deadline! You can fill out your surveys on our Backer Portal after you've finished managing your pledge. They can be found on your account page under the Surveys tab.

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ Eurogamer

by Couchpotato, 04:38

Eurogamer has a new preview for Pillars of Eternity based on a talk with Josh Sawyer.

Why do the game's characters look mundane?

Pillars' characters are not flamboyant fantasy heroes, not wizards with pointy hats, not knights with elaborate armour. 'Why?' people asked after watching the recent trailer (embedded above). 'Why are the characters so... normal?'

"Some people might not like that our characters' proportions and outfits look comparatively drab and dressed down and not exaggerated," answered Sawyer, "but that's also kind of what the original [Infinity Engine] games were like. They don't look like [World of Warcraft] characters, they don't look like Diablo characters. They're not super-exaggerated.

We're not doing romances

Romances between you and fellow adventurers seem to be a de facto feature of role-playing games today. But Obsidian isn't doing them in Pillars of Eternity.

"We're not doing romances," said Sawyer, "but [the other characters] do have pretty detailed stories, they do have their own personal motivations and goals that sometimes align with yours and sometimes they don't. They interject into your conversations, they argue with you, they argue with each other."

And if you play on Expert mode, or if you enable character death, then followers can die. But Obsidian's "not real big on having characters die in scripted sequences". (Incidentally, if you don't like the given, storied crop of party members, you can make your own, using the Adventurer's Hall.)

Tuesday - February 11, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Preview @ PC Gamer

Obsidian isn’t giving away much about the plot, only that your created character is caught in the middle of an ‘incident’. This causes a series of consequences that build into your story. Vague – but it’s a character arc designed to give the player options. “We want to let the player feel like they have a lot of control over where the story goes, who they help, who they punish, and what the ultimate resolutions of major story points are,” says Sawyer.

Expect plenty of choice in how you deal with individual encounters, too. Sawyer uses the example of guards protecting a sacred dungeon you need to explore. “You can trick them, talk them out of it or intimidate them,” he says. “But the default is to just walk up to them and kill them.” It’s good to have options.

Monday - February 10, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Josh Sawyer Q&A Videos

by Couchpotato, 11:18

Josh Sawyer released two videos to answer qestions about Pillars of Eternity.

Attributes and Character Archetypes

Answering silkvalley's question "Do you think it is important for attributes to allow certain archetypes? For example, a clumsy and physically weak wizard, yet she deals tons of damage with her spells. The priest who's outstandingly accurate with his spells, but is not a master in sleight of hand and pickpocketing (Dexterity). Similarly, should increasing the damage he deals with spells (via attribute) also increase the number of items he can carry?"

Sympathy for Villains and Antagonists

My rambling answer to the question: "I notice in recent years many "popular" evil characters are written in a way so that they're too sympathetic or relatable so that their status as a villain whom the audience should not overly sympathize with is diminished. How does one write a villain or evil character in a way in which their motivations are well-defined and even sympathetic without defeating their purpose in the story?"

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Eurogamer

When is Pillars of Eternity, your 10th most anticipated game of 2014, coming out? Spring? That's what developer Obsidian said during the game's Kickstarter campaign.

But no, according to project lead Josh Sawyer, who spoke to me recently, "It's not going to be in spring." What about summer? Probably not.

Is it realistic, then, for people not to expect Pillars of Eternity in the first half of 2014? "Yeah," he answered. "It's going to come later."

And then he explained: "We foresaw needing a bit more time when the Kickstarter ended. It's understandable that people don't know this but when you start a Kickstarter, once it goes live, you can't change that [estimated release] date. You're not allowed to change to that date.

"When we started with a million-dollar budget and a relatively modest game with five classes [there are now 11], that was assuming if we get $1m we can make this game and we'll probably get it done by April. We got almost four-times as much money and that's a much bigger game, and that doesn't mean that immediately we just dump four-times as many people on it and it also gets done in April. There's a lot more stuff to do.

Monday - February 03, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Class Poll for Next Update

by Couchpotato, 02:53

There is a new poll on the Pillars of Eternity forums to see what character class you want featured in the games next update.

As per Update #71: "We will be doing three more class pair updates in the future: The Leaders of the Band (chanters and priests), The Front Line (fighters and barbarians), and The Mob Rulers (wizards and druids). Let us know what you think of today's update and please vote on which of the three class pairs you'd like to see covered next."

Wednesday - January 29, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #71

The update is a wall of text so please read the link as I can't fit more than a part of it.

The Heavy Hitters: Rogues and Rangers

Welcome! First things first: if you have backed Pillars of Eternity but not yet completed your order on our website, please do so as soon as possible. Even if you have an all-digital order, we need information from you to make sure you get everything you are supposed to. If your backer tier includes an NPC, item, portrait, or other custom piece of content, an early response will make it easier for us to work with you on your designs and preferences. As always, we appreciate that our backers have made Pillars of Eternity possible and we want to ensure that you get your money's worth.

Heavy Hitters

In Pillars of Eternity, the designation of a character as a "rogue" signifies their vicious, brutal style of fighting, not a propensity for theft or deception. More than any other class, rogues exemplify the adage that the best defense is a good offense. If fighters are the disciplined, reliable, well-trained units that hold the line, rogues are the shock troops that attempt to break through that line to take out vulnerable units before they can effectively retaliate. When pinned down, rogues can suffer from their weak defenses, but ideally they carry their momentum from one target to the next in short order.

Rangers are expert sharpshooters with any ranged weapon. Though they traditionally rely on bows and crossbows, some use firearms or even magical implements. Regardless of their choice of armament, even novice rangers can strike swiftly and leave severe wounds that quickly wear down an enemy's stamina and movement. They are assisted in their efforts by their animal companions, incredibly tough and loyal creatures who share their lives (literally) with their masters. All rangers start with the following three abilities:

Thursday - January 16, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Social Round-up #6

Given we're now well into January and it's been roughly a month, if not more, since we last heard news on Pillars of Eternity, it seemed like a good moment to do another social round-up on the title, mostly (but not entirely) based on info coming from lead designer and project director J.E. Sawyer.

Wednesday - January 15, 2014

Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update #70

New Year Project Update

Hello, everyone. Like everyone here at Obsidian, I hope you had a great holiday season and were able to gorge on lots of treats and good food. This week I am going to go over a bit about the new Backer Portal (please log in if you haven't already), give a general update about where we are in our production, and show off some of the cool things that are happening in the game. In our next update we will be taking a more detailed look at some of the classes in Eternity.

Areas

As most of you know, we finished up Od Nua (our mega-dungeon) in our last milestone. I have to say, I think it looks pretty amazing. Currently, the area team is working on our second big city, Twin Elms, and it is looking just as good. Here, take a look for yourself.

Without getting into too much detail, the Area Designers are fleshing out the end of the game right now and everything is really coming together. The area in the screenshot above looks like the perfect place for a big fight, huh?

Characters

Our character team has been cranking out new creatures and equipment.

We are almost completely through all of our A priority creatures. Soon we will be working on our B priority creatures and lots of equipment variations.

One of the creatures that was just finished to Alpha quality is the Cean Gŵla. These banshee-like undead are the spirits of women who died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

UI

Most of our UI has either been implemented or mocked up to an Alpha level. The interface that we would like to show you today is the character sheet, which shows character and party information. You can find lots of useful info on the sheet including various party statistics, your reputations with Eternity factions, and character stats.

Overview: This talk will feature the retro-evolution of classic 2D RPG elements in Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity. From the challenges of creating massive, dynamically-lit isometric environments to trusting in players' vivid imaginations and problem-solving capabilities, Project Eternity poses some interesting challenges to its veteran team. To find the right balance between using contemporary development practices and meeting classic RPG expectations, the developers have solicited community feedback, returned to past titles and, of course, played a bunch of D&D. Join us on an adventure fraught with wonders and perils more dazzling than the Warlock's

Sunday - December 15, 2013

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ PC Gamer

PC Gamer interviews Josh Sawyerto talk about combat, companions, and character building in Pillars of Eternity.

PC Gamer: Were the new systems you've designed for Pillars of Eternity in any way responses to problems to you had creating the old Infinity Engine games?

Josh: Yeah, some of them were really fiddly sort of things. Dungeons and Dragons is based around the idea of people sitting around a table and doing basic arithmetic with a twenty-sided die. When you're on a computer a lot of those calculations can go a lot faster. You can do real-time division very easily, you can use a 100-point scale for things where normally that would be kind of onerous in a tabletop environment.

The thing that allows us to do is give finer granularity and do more complex calculations that scale better over the course of the game. Also things like combat rounds could be very limiting, so we're doing something else in the spirit of a fully real-time, continuous, purely time based system, while still feeling like you're controlling little RTS-type units. In the sense that you're not making guys do individual attacks, as much as assigning them actions and watching them go about them.

PC Gamer: In terms of combat: going back to the Infinity Engine games, one of the stranger sights is these two characters facing each other, swiping away with their swords and waiting for the dice rolls to hit. Is that a quirk you wanted to retain?

Josh: Well, we have eliminated the fake attacks, so that doesn't happen. We're not trying to have a super-high level of verisimilitude in the sense of having everyone attacking and parrying and stuff like that, because the characters are pretty small, and having all these weird creatures doing all these synchronised parries would actually be pretty difficult. Because we're not using rounds they can be active on more than just a once every six seconds basis. They're more continuously active and they have combat stances, which is something the Infinity Engine games did not have. They look a little more involved and engaged, but there still is a little hand waving there where they're pantomiming what they're doing.

Thursday - December 12, 2013

Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ RPS

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has another interview with Obsidian about Pillars of Eternity talking about the games mega dungeon.

RPS: How long do you think a run-through of the mega-dungeon will take?

Brennecke: I don’t want to say, but it’s probably going to be hours and hours?

Adler: It’ll be pretty beefy.

Sawyer: My direction for designing it has been that the ramp in difficulty goes up faster than you can level while in it. [laughs] So I kind of want the player to hit… You go through, you go down a couple levels, then you go to the next level and you’re like, “WHOA! Okay!” Either it forces them to get really serious about tactics, or they’re like, “You know what? I’m gonna go out to do some more quests, come back, and go deeper down.”

RPS: So it’s something you work through gradually.

Sawyer: Yeah. And we’ve come up with some ideas for mechanics that encourage continuing to return to the dungeon, so that it becomes kind of like a cyclical thing. You go down for a while, you back off, you deal with some things, and then you find a reason to go back down.

RPS: Is there a story surrounding the dungeon? Something huge and labyrinthine like the dungeon itself?

Sawyer: Yeah, yeah. You’ll start to learn [that there's a lot more to it than you first suspect]. Initially it just seems like a cursed, abandoned place. The Glanfathans warn people away from it. But they kind of say, “If you wanna go buck wild in here, it’s your funeral. Go down in there if you want.” As you go deeper you start learning more about what it was and what it is now and what’s going on in it. There’s a mystery. It’ll be a fun mystery to solve and get to the bottom of it.

Wednesday - December 04, 2013

Project Eternity - Twin Elms Fan Art

by Couchpotato, 01:51

Obsidian has a new forum post from a developer under the name of BAdler were he posts a special piece of fan art from Chris Bischoff.

Hey, everyone. I just wanted to share a really awesome piece of fan art that we received this morning from Chris Bischoff. It's inspired from the Twin Elms concepts that we released in our last update.

If Chris' name sounds familiar it's because he has his own Kickstarter going for the game STASIS. If you haven't checked it out yet you should. What's not to like about a 2D, isometric, sci-fi, horror adventure game? It's in its last few days so lets help him push it over the edge and get it fully funded.

Wednesday - November 27, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #68

ART!

Hey, everyone. We decided against releasing the Backer Portal right before the holiday break. We wanted to make sure that we had a full staff on board to solve any technical issues that might arise on the site during its launch. We are just as excited as you are for the Backer Portal and we want to make sure it has a smooth release.

To keep you sated in Project Eternity goodness we decided to show off some of the artwork we have been putting together this milestone. We are pretty proud of it. Hope you enjoy.

Areas

Last week on the forums Sensuki, Tagomika, and coffeetable brought up questions about areas we were outsourcing. I figured it would be better to show you the areas instead of talking about them. Take a look.

Both of these images come from the same wilderness area. While this area appears thick with foliage now, it was previously the site to horrific fires caused by drakes. Large swaths of ground were burned and only now has the land started to recover.

Concepts

Kaz and Polina have been hard at work getting concepts prepared for our current milestone and the next.

Polina has been focusing on creating the look and feel for our next big city - Twin Elms. Twin Elms is a unique mixture of ruined architecture from an ancient civilization with a layer of Viking-inspired Glanfathan buildings built into it.

While Polina has been helping to plan the future, Kaz is firmly entrenched in our mega dungeon, The Endless Paths of Od Nua. Take a look at some of the prop work that Kaz is doing for one of the Engwithan-inspired areas.

Friday - November 22, 2013

Project Eternity - Video Interview @ CGM

CGM's Alex Leach got a chance to sit down with Chris Avellone at MIGS 2013 to talk about his work on Torment: Tides of Numenera and Project Eternity. He talks about the advent of Kickstarter and how it helps projects that could not get funding otherwise.

Wednesday - November 20, 2013

Project Eternity - Josh Sawyer GDC Next Panel

This talk will feature the retro-evolution of classic 2D RPG elements in Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity. From the challenges of creating massive, dynamically-lit isometric environments to trusting in players' vivid imaginations and problem-solving capabilities, Project Eternity poses some interesting challenges to its veteran team. To find the right balance between using contemporary development practices and meeting classic RPG expectations, the developers have solicited community feedback, returned to past titles and, of course, played a bunch of D&D. Join us on an adventure fraught with wonders and perils more dazzling than the Warlock's Crypt!

Tuesday - November 19, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview @ IncGamers

IG: It‭’‬s been just over a year since‭ ‬Project Eternity secured its Kickstarter funding,‭ ‬which seems kind of crazy to me because it feels much more recent‭. ‬Are you roughly where you thought you‭’‬d be at in the development process at this point‭?

AB: We are further along in development than I thought we were going to be‭ ‬at this stage.‭ ‬We have a great team,‭ ‬and we’ve been cranking for over a year now.‭ ‬Everyone is being productive‭ ‬and making‭ ‬a lot‭ ‬of content.‭ ‬The passion and dedication to the project is outstanding. ‭ And I’m really happy that the game is fully playable with all‭ ‬11‭ ‬classes.‭ ‬In terms of balance and playability this is huge,‭ ‬because Tim [Cain] and Josh [Sawyer] have more time to iterate and polish all of the spells and abilities in the game.‭ ‬There’s still a lot to do,‭ ‬and we are still pushing ourselves to keep going and to keep momentum heading into next year.

IG: The most recent update seemed to indicate that the game will be called‭ ‬Pillars of Eternity when it launches,‭ ‬although that doesn‭’‬t seem to have been confirmed yet.‭ ‬Are you able to confirm it‭?

AB: I can confirm that we have an official name for Project Eternity.‭

IG: That same update also hinted at a major update to come for Thanksgiving.‭ ‬Can you provide any clues or hints as to what that may entail‭?

AB: The‭ “‬Big Update‭” ‬will contain access to our backer portal along with a new Project Eternity website.‭ ‬For people that pledged money you can log in to our system and manage your pledge,‭ ‬fill out surveys,‭ ‬and set up your forum backer badge.‭ ‬We have other exciting‭ ‬and wacky‭ ‬things planned for the update,‭ ‬so keep an eye out for it in the next few weeks.

Wednesday - November 13, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #67

Obsidian is back with a new Project Eternitypost-funding update asking, "What's in a Game?"It's mostly a behind the scenes look at how the game is developed.

What's in a Game?

Update by Brandon Adler, Literal Task Master

Welcome to my world...

As a producer, one of my jobs is creating and understanding the game's master schedule. It's a never-ending task that requires constant refinement and adjustment. Anything that is added or changed can cause a cascade of unintended consequences which is why as game developers we have a responsibility to vet everything that goes into the game.

Today I'd like to give you a glimpse into how we approach game development from a scheduling perspective and what our typical thought processes are when figuring this stuff out. You will be able to see how each part of our area creation fits into the schedule and why changes and modifications can lead to difficult decisions for the team. Hopefully, it will give a bit more insight into the tough decisions that we make each day when crafting Project Eternity.

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #66

A year already...

Unbelievably, a year has passed by since we launched Project Eternity on Kickstarter, and a lot has happened. We’re almost to seventy project updates; we’ve made lots of levels, characters, classes, monsters, loot, and a whole lot more over the past year with more being made almost every day.

November’s right around the corner, and here in the States, we have an upcoming holiday called Thanksgiving near the end of the month. It’s supposed to be a time where we give thanks for the harvest and reflect on the past year.

It seemed rather appropriate to have a bigger than normal update coming before this holiday and we’re cooking a big one for you! This turkey dinner is going to be large and in charge... It’ll show a bunch of new stuff we haven’t shown anyone outside the studio yet and one of the side dishes coming with it is the new site.

Backer Website: Main and Media Pages

All of our previous updates are now easily available in one place, easy to browse through and include futuristic RSS technology! We’ve also got a one-stop shop for all of the screenshots, wallpapers, artwork, and videos that we’ve released and will release.

Backer Website: Pledge and Rewards Pages

On the left here, you can make sure all of the pledges you made are connected to your account. If you backed the game on Kickstarter and then later added money via PayPal, you can make sure that’s all been confirmed. If it doesn’t show up, you can link it in by providing the e-mail addresses you used if they don’t match.

…and then, confirm that your reward is correct, or maybe even upgrade if you like! Did you give maybe give us more money thinking you chose one reward tier but accidentally chose a lower one? No problem, you can fix that up. Oh, and slacker backers… you might have some upgrade opportunities… :) Onward is the addon screen where you can browse through the available addons and confirm those choices as well.

Backer Website: Add-on and Game Info Pages

Then finalize everything! Don’t worry, even though you’ll be confirming your pledge selections, if you picked up physical rewards, you’ll be able to change your shipping address up to the point where we need to lock them. You’ve got plenty of time, and we’ll keep that open as long as we possibly can in case you move or want to have your stuff shipped elsewhere.

On the right there is our “Game” section of the site, where over the coming months more information and art about the various races, classes, characters, critters, and locations of interest in the game can be found.

OK, we’ll be back in a few short weeks… For those of you who have designs as part of your rewards, get your thinking caps on!

Wednesday - October 02, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #65, Ciphers

Cipher Mechanics

Contemporary ciphers are fighting casters, like the Glanfathan "mind hunters" who invented the discipline. When engaged in physical combat, they use an Ability called Soul Whip to contact and drain the psyches of their targets. Recognizable by the purple flames that engulf a cipher's weapons, Soul Whip generates a Focus resource that ciphers can use to power their abilities. Though ciphers begin combat with a modest amount of Focus, their more advanced techniques demand large expenditures of Focus. Additionally, repeated uses of even minor powers will quickly drain a cipher's Focus, requiring them to dive into physical combat to generate more.

Cipher powers are not limited to mental manipulation. They have abilities that allow them to use a target's soul energy to "leak" and burst into flame, to generate a physical shockwave of that knocks down everyone behind the target, or even to bend back toward the cipher, creating a field of protective energy around him or her.

With the exception of Soul Whip, all cipher powers require Focus and a nearby target other than themselves, one with a "housed" soul. In practical terms, this means that ciphers must always target a nearby ally or an enemy with their powers. It is impossible for them to target themselves, a distant target, or open ground.

Here is a sampling of some of the cipher's abilities:

Soul Whip (Modal) - At close range, the cipher's weapons generate fields of parasitic energy that lash out at a target's soul. The Soul Whip mode reduces the amount of damage caused, but each successful hit briefly lowers the target's Psyche defense and generates Focus for the cipher (attacks Psyche).

Mind Wave - The cipher violently intrudes into an enemy's mind, Stunning the target (attacks Psyche) and generating a cone of concussive force behind him or her that can knock down anyone in its path (attacks Fortitude).

Psychovampiric Shield - The cipher drains Intellect from enemies and uses it to temporarily increase his or her Deflection. The increase in the cipher's Deflection is dependent on how much Intellect he or she successfully drains from victims (attacks Psyche).

Mind Blades - The cipher uses the souls of nearby enemies to generate attacks against the subjects themselves. Each target is attacked once by a slashing "mind blade" which then moves on to the next nearest enemy up to a maximum of five targets (attacks Deflection).

Recall Agony - The cipher causes the target to re-experience the pain of a wound moments after the target originally suffered it. The damage is a percentage of the original value, but it ignores the armor of the target (attacks Psyche).

Ectopsychic Echo - The cipher and an ally generate a bolt of psychic energy that periodically rebounds between them, causing Crush damage to anyone caught in the area (attacks Reflexes).

Your player house is located within the boundaries of the stronghold, but it is its own building with its own upgrades/benefits.

I think physically splitting the house and the stronghold increases the likelihood that the player will choose to not visit one or the other (most likely, the house) over the course of the game.

It doesn't need to be a major source at all.[stronghold income] It becomes a problem if it's an endless source.

It isn't an endless source.

Good. Because in your other games with keeps/strategical resources, it was endless.

I didn't design the stronghold resources/systems in any of the previous games I've worked on. If a system gives out a resource periodically, it should either expire after a number of periods have elapsed or the periods should stop elapsing.

Sunday - September 22, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview @ Hold The Line

Q: You guys have stated that Eternity will be a pretty mature and dark-themed game. Slavery, drug use, etc. Are you afraid that might turn off some potential fans, or cause some unintended controversy within the gaming media?

Chris: If it’s true to the story, we’re afraid of nothing. There are a lot of elements we’ve often wanted to explore in previous titles that we haven’t had an opportunity to do, and Eternity gives us free rein to deal with those subjects. We don’t include elements like these for shock value – if they fit in with the game’s themes and if they add weight to the player’s moral choices for the player, then they are absolutely worth adding to the world. Similar themes worked well in interesting ways in Fallout 2, for example, and seeing some of those same evils explored in Eternity from a different perspective is something we’re looking forward to - and that’s only a small part of what we have planned.

Q: Will Eternity allow players to explore companion storyline/quests like they might have experienced in Fallout: New Vegas?

Chris: Each companion is intended to have a storyline, background, and quest that either advances them, ties them to the game story, or ties them to the theme, and preferably, some combination thereof. It may not be exactly like the New Vegas quest structure (we go as far back as Torment internal quests and the KOTOR2 advancement arcs), but companions will have agendas and quests of their own. More on this will likely come out in the coming months (and it may change as the companions are fully fleshed out), although the specifics will likely wait until the players are actually playing the title.

Wednesday - September 18, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #64, Developer Q&A

What are you most looking forward to on Project Eternity?

Just the fact that we can put an IE inspired game on the market is enough to get me excited. It's been long overdue. I'm looking forward to seeing all the hard work we are putting in coming together as one complete package, and seeing reactions of people playing the game!

Which concept that you have done has been your favorite?

Artists are typically never happy with their own work. Next question! :p

I've enjoyed working on art for scripted interactions, and been pretty happy with the results. I've also been putting a lot of work into inventory UI recently and am happy with the results coming out of that.

What's your favorite Infinity Engine game? Why?

BG1 for exploring the vast wilderness. I can still recall the music and hear the birds chirping in the distance. BG2 is a close 2nd for its story and companions. The only title I haven't finished is IWD2 which I am playing through currently, and I will say I'm enjoying the combat.

Wednesday - September 04, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #63, Strongholds

Hello! I have spent much of my time for the last few weeks devoted to making the game’s stronghold system, which was one of our Kickstarter project’s biggest stretch goals, into one of the best systems in the game. Josh has created an amazing and detailed stronghold design, with lots of upgrades and activities and random events that really make owning a stronghold fun and exciting. I want to spend this update explaining what we have made in the game, but first, let’s talk about the stronghold itself.

First, a caveat: I am going to describe the stronghold as it is currently designed. This design is mostly programmed already too, but as with all development, it might change as we finish the art and audio, fix any bugs, and tune the game play. So please view this as a snapshot of the stronghold development as it exists today.

You will be offered the stronghold early in the game, before you finish Act 1. But the stronghold itself is old and dilapidated, and you will want to upgrade it as soon as you can. These upgrades will, in turn, open up new activities and events that can happen, which will make the stronghold a dynamic and fun place to own.

Wednesday - August 21, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #62, State of the Project

by Couchpotato, 03:20

Obsidian has posted another post-funding update for Project Eternity. In this update we are told the about the state of the project. Topics include new hires, areas, characters, and features of the game.

Hey, everyone. As you know, over the past six weeks we have been working on our first production milestone - the cleverly titled Production 01 milestone. Our first target has been Defiance Bay (our first BIG city) and the team has been busting their collective butts to get as much fantasy roleplaying goodness as possible into the city.

In George Ziets' own words, "Defiance Bay is the capital and largest city in the Dyrwood, gateway to the riches of Glanfath, teeming with adventurers and explorers from all over the region. Defiance Bay is a city of the common people, where the most prominent and respected citizens are self-made men. It stands at the forefront of experimentation in soul magic and exemplifies the age of discovery."

A ton has been accomplished in a pretty short amount of time and we would like to share some of it with you.

It doesn't at all -- conceptually or the specific example you gave. You can very easily make a dumb brute fighter character in PE and role-play him or her as such. You can also make a brilliant weakling fighter character and role-play him or her as such. The difference between doing this in PE and, for example, D&D, is that in PE this is a fully viable character concept who emphasizes different elements in combat.

I have to say I think it's an odd complaint considering that to even arguably have ability score-based role-playing opportunities against type with A/D&D, you are required to build a character that is bad at his or her class. It's better in later editions of D&D because they put more effort into providing some universal values for ability scores, but there are still fundamentally horrible builds. A decent number of feats allow for viable Int-based fighters (for example), but a Cha-based fighter is flat-out bad at being a fighter.

You can find ways to work around it, but they're almost all splat book-based prestige classes and feats that try to put a band-aid over the fundamental problem, which is an imbalance of class-specific and universal benefits provided by the ability score array.

Thank for your response. I’m actually not concerned about the combat implications of your attribute system (no dump stats? Great!), but rather what the proposed implementation implies for PE as an RPG: attributes are nothing more than modifiers for combat. It takes away what little cRPGs COULD have in terms of mechanically interesting chars to RP, e.g. low int chars in Arcanum had worthwhile dumb convo options (yes, it was gimmicky, but it has potential). Do P:E's stats also help "define" our chars?

Yes, of course they do. All attributes are used in both scripted interactions and standard conversations to unlock options -- as in PS:T, but with a heavier emphasis on equal use of the attributes.

One of the reasons we don't have a dialogue/speech skill is so a character's attributes can be used as dialogue prerequisites with greater frequency.

Wednesday - July 24, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #60, Companions

by Myrthos, 11:58

Chris Avellone is taking care of this latest update for Project Eternity on companions. It is a long but interesting update with several scribbles from the master himself and an update of his Arcanum playthrough.

Really quick, I want to clarify what I meant about “challenge mechanics.” That doesn’t always mean combat – it’s whatever the primary challenge in the game is. If we were doing a Thief-style RPG, then stealth and avoiding detection becomes the primary challenge mechanic, not combat. Depending on the RPG and its range of challenges, a character can still be fairly weak in combat, but if that’s the case, we try to think of how they’re helpful with regards to the game’s other challenges (giving an edge in dialogue, healing, fast travel).

For all the characters I’ve seen or designed for games that don’t cater to at least one of the game’s primary challenge mechanics, those guys are often unpopular or unused because they’re not helping out with the systematic gameplay, regardless of how cool they might seem. And the more actively these characters can participate in the mechanics (vs. passive), the stronger their appeal.

Also at the same time, I try to be careful that the companion's skill set doesn’t overlap with the challenge roles of the other characters. We try to indicate in the companion briefs how each companion's challenge role is intended – one thing I learned as a pen-and-paper Gamemaster is you want to be careful about two players sharing the same role (Tank, Mage, Priest, etc.) – if one is clearly stronger than another, then the second one needs something else to make them stand out and be “special” in the party and fulfill an equally cool role in the party dynamic, otherwise one ends up getting upstaged by the other. And feelings get hurt. Which isn’t something you want in a game designed to entertain.

For Eternity, we’re setting it up so even if players choose the same classes as some companions, the companions are designed to assist those character types and make them more special (ciphers, for example, can chain, and even priests with the same religion can discuss theology and combo attacks).

In addition, we wanted to be careful about personality overlaps as well. I wanted to make sure any companion design didn't overlap with ideas or “concepts" of the other characters (or across projects – so for example, while I’m doing a Glaive for Torment, I’m not doing any fighters for Eternity) ...and that extends to personalities as well. As an example, I told Colin for Torment it might be a good idea if I didn't do a female rogue with a ruthless hidden agenda who can shape-shift according to your personality and have her/it be redundant with the Toy or the Cold, Calculating Jack in Torment.

So knowing the general class-focus, role, and personality for each, as well as ones that would be useful, we try to include in the character briefs and get that info to people as quickly as possible so everyone can get a sense for what direction to take their characters.

As for me, after much begging for the class itself and begging for the specific companion, I asked for the cipher. The cipher is near and dear to my heart, it felt like the first brand new class we were introducing that was tied into the soul mechanics of the Eternity world, and the freedom to explore it is a great opportunity.

Saturday - July 20, 2013

Project Eternity - RPG Codex Community Q&A

by Couchpotato, 00:48

RPG Codex has a new article were Josh Sawyer answers questions asked by the sites users. How I pity the poor fool. They even provide a nice image of him before and after.

With Eternity as Obsidian's own IP, how do you guys feel about taking risks (in game design and narration)? With this in mind: Have you talked about where you want to take Eternity as a franchise in future titles? A continuation of the Baldur's Gate-like formula as set by Project Eternity, or perhaps derivations towards something that plays more like IWD/ToEE, or perhaps something more like Torment/MotB?

Project Eternity is relatively conservative as far as new IPs go, but I think we can grow it in more unusual ways over time. One of the best ways we've found to test out potentially "wild" (sometimes more wild than others) ideas is through expansions or DLCs, but as the IP grows overall, I think we can find a lot of opportunities to create more risky stories and corners of the world to explore.

Kickstarter Update #3 and various other postings have hinted that the game will allow temporary characters to join the party under special circumstances. Has this 'follower' mechanic been kept and would it be possible for a non-cNPC to join the party for a certain quest while remaining separate from the party size? Would this possible allow for some larger battles?

The party size can never be larger than six standard characters, but some quests may have NPCs who come along with the party or arrive at a location when the party does. Additionally, the stronghold design currently features hirelings that help protect the stronghold and offer additional benefits, but they do not accompany the party out in the wild.

Wednesday - July 10, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-funding Update #59, Meet Polina Hristova

by Myrthos, 12:27

In this latest update for Project Eternity you can find a short Q&A with Creature Concept Designer Polina Hristova, who really likes her creatures.

Q: What is your typical work day like on Project Eternity? A: I guess in comparison to most, my work day is pretty simple. I get to draw pretty pictures. The days differ based on the assignment and I do sometimes change my methods since creativity does flow differently day to day, but my general pipeline goes like this: I meet with Josh and the designers to get a description on what I'd be working on. Sometimes these descriptions can range from a simple word to an extremely detailed description on facial structure, hair length and color, outfit, tattoos, amount of skin pores... (okay I'm exaggerating the skin pore part)... and anywhere in between. I'll also talk with the animators if the creatures would share rigs or any other potential problems we can have (it's best to design with these problems in mind than having to change the design a lot later). After that (and depending on schedule) I'll do a number of variants fitting the description and summon a mini-character scrum (Josh, the designers, Rob, our modelers, and our animators). Together they'll discuss any problems or make any suggestions and pick a variant that I'll take to final.

Q: What are you most looking forward to on Project Eternity? A: I am really looking forward to playing it. =) But for now I'm really just enjoying watching the game come to reality. I love watching peoples' creations come to life and I give many props to our modelers and animators for all their hard work. I love how they animated skuldr and his sneaky "I'm gunna getcha!" walk.

Q: Which Project Eternity creature that you have concepted excites you the most? A: This question's a trick question. Creatures all excite me. I LOVE creatures, aliens (not relative) and things that go bump in the night. I guess if you had to make me pick right now I would have to say the drake. =) but I have a weakness for dragons and it’s also the thing most current in my brain. I also really enjoyed designing the godlike heads.

Saturday - July 06, 2013

Project Eternity - Drops Crafting Skill and Item Durability

by Couchpotato, 11:41

Project Eternity Project Director J.E. Sawyer has announced on the Obsidian forums that the team has decided to drop the crafting skill and item durability mechanics. The decision was based on the feedback he received, and his own doubts on the system.

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically). The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay. I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill. As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc. Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

Project Eternity - Various News Roundup

Project Eternity isn't a one-off trip down memory lane nor a mere Kickstarter curio for Obsidian Entertainment, it's a series in the making - a potential future upon which the studio could be based.

"We would like to keep it going for as long as..." What, eternity? I butted in, when I spoke to Obsidian's creative director Chris Avellone at Rezzed 2013. "Exactly!" He replied with his easy smile.

The plan was always to grow Project Eternity, or whatever it ends up being called, with expansions post-release - that was talked about during the Kickstarter campaign. But it's not a future that's set in stone.

"If the first game does well enough and generates enough profit beyond the backer amounts we got..." 'Well, then it will happen,' were the words Avellone intimated but left unsaid.

"We would need the same amount again."

But what if Project Eternity doesn't do very well, doesn't raise enough money through sales - what happens to the series then?

"The way we structured the plan is I don't think there's ever an instance where it would be put on hold, because as soon as the first game is completed then we're still working on the expansion," he said.

"And during that time when we're working on the expansion, we have a good sense for how well Eternity is doing in the marketplace, and if it's doing well then we will have a sequel going on, and if it's not, no worries, at least we delivered what the backers were happy with."

“I think it'd translate very well to a pen and paper game, which was part of the intent. As for whether there'd be a core rulebook for the game, I don't know if that was always the destination as far as we're concerned, but the fact we wanted to create a system that felt very turn-based and pen and paper rules, that was important.”

Not that D&D has been forgotten, as some of the team get together and use it as a reference, “We do play Dungeons and Dragons actually, twice a week and sometimes over the weekend, in one of the rooms in Obsidian, just to get a sense at how the old-school pen-and-paper RPGs feel like, and some of the things we learn sitting around the table would be really good to incorporate into Eternity. I'm not part of those sessions, it's Josh and a few other designers and our Lead Area Designer Bobby Null, and Area Designer, Jorge Salgado. They all sit around the table and go through one of Bobby's campaigns which works out pretty well.”

Strategyinformer-"Chris Avellone would love to work on more established franchises"

Things get really interesting when he started talking about TV shows, such as crime programs like The Wire, and Sherlock, the latter of which “was really really good at creating really interesting dialogue gameplay mechanics without realising it, for how Sherlock analyses a crime scene, and I think that could lend itself to a game really well and I'd be really excited to work on, especially if Benedict was a part of that. He's awesome. “

Then there's Adult Swim's absolutely hilarious Archer, partly because of a game Obsidian have been working on recently, “Especially as we've been doing South Park, the way of creating game mechanics in that sort of high style comedic environment, especially with the 2D images, there's a lot of possibilities to explore in that space that Archer would be really good for.” There's also his previous work on Alpha Protocol which Avellone mentioned. “We had a lot of ideas based on what we learnt on the first one. I think those things could translate in to a brand new espionage game.”

However, there was one franchise that got him really excited about possibly working on, “OH! Doctor Who! Absolutely Doctor Who! Oh My God, it's so much dialogue conflict in that sense.” There's also the small matter of regenerations being “a perfect character avatar creation sequence. And you know it's very companion-focused in terms of the gameplay, like who you have in your party in terms of how the adventure plays out is really really important. And just the fact The Doctor solves more things through research and interaction with NPCS and the environment whereas he's not blasting them apart, he's usually running from them.”

For fans who want to see sequels of franchise games Obsidian did in the past, Avellone wasn't counting those out either. “I mean, we loved working on Fallout, we loved working on Star Wars, if that became a possibility in the future I'm sure we'd be open to it”.

Thursday - July 04, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #58

Project Eternityhas a new post-funding update, and the topic this time is crafting.

Crafting Basics

Crafting is the skill that you use to make equippable items like armor and weapons, and consumable items like potions and food. To begin crafting, you must find an appropriate crafting location.

Forges – these blacksmithing locations can be used to make all of the equippable gear. From helmets to armor to boots, if you can wear it, then you can make it here.

Labs – these alchemical tables are used to make any enchantments, as well as all alchemical consumables like potions, scrolls or figurines (which let you summon a creature that will fight for you). If you want to improve your gear or brew a potion, you need to find one of these labs.

Hearths – these cooking spots are used to make food and drink that can give you long-term benefits when you ingest them. Many rest areas will have hearths, so crafting of this sort can often be done “in the field”.

When you use the central object at these locations, such as the anvil at the forge, you will enter a crafting interface that displays all of your forge recipes, broken down into categories such as armor, weapons, boots, helmets, rings, etc. You pick a category and can see all of the recipes you know for that category. Each recipe has a set of ingredients needed to make its item (or items, as some recipes will make batches of items). Some recipes will have additional prerequisites, including requiring you or a companion to have a certain talent or ability or even skill at an appropriate level. Higher level recipes have more prerequisites and need rarer ingredients.

Item Durability

Most items don’t degrade over time. This means that boots, rings, helmets, gloves, amulets, cloaks, and belts are not worn down by use. However, weapons, shields, and armor (that is, chest armor) do have durability values and are worn down by use. Specifically, every attack with a weapon degrades that weapon by one unit, and armor and shields are similarly degraded when the wearer is attacked.

Items have lots of units of durability, and they do not suffer any negative effects until those units are completely gone. When an item has reached 25% of its maximum durability, it will become “worn” and appear that way in your inventory, but it will not behave any differently until the last unit of durability is lost. At that point, the item is “damaged” and the following effects will happen:

Friday - June 28, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview @ Strategyinformer

Strategyinformer has a new interview with Chris Avellone talking about Project Eternity. Read the link for more questions dealing with Fallout, Wastelands 2, and other topics.

Strategy Informer: Why do you feel like the isometric RPG kind of fell out of popularity?

Chris Avellone: I’m not sure that it did. I think that at some point people realised that the controller schemes for consoles don’t lend themselves to controlling a party of multiple people. They have to either be two people flanking you or an AI set, but you can’t have a party of six people all going on an adventure with the controller setups that they had. I think that was enough of an obstacle to knock the idea of “well, if we can’t do isometric RPGs on these particular systems then we shouldn’t do those types of RPGs”. I think things became more consolized after that.

Strategy Informer: It’s a bit sad really.Chris Avellone: Yeah, and I think it was also much harder to sell PC-only products when it seemed like there was much more money to be made doing console ports and SKUs.

Strategy Informer: On a more positive note, consequently why do you think there has been a resurge in their popularity recently?

Chris Avellone: The interesting thing is that there has been a lot of discussion about isometric RPGs. New ones are being developed but I still think the percentage of gamers that support those titles isn’t actually a huge part of the gaming community, they’re just really passionate and they’re going to show how passionate they are about those games. For example between Wasteland 2, Project Eternity and Torment [Tides of Numenera] the backers consisted of around eighty thousand people, which to a much larger publisher those numbers are insignificant, they wouldn’t even get out of bed for numbers like that. But because the fanbase is so passionate, they’ll pay much more beyond the core price of a product, they’re willing to talk about it much more, they’re a stronger and much more vocal community, and there’s much more information being given about these games too, so I think all that creates a much higher level of attention.

Strategy Informer: And there’s always going to be an audience who will simply wait for the game to go on sale rather than back it.

Chris Avellone: Which is fine too! And I think we’ll probably see the acid test of how well this model’s doing when Wasteland 2 goes into distribution, then Eternity then Torment. We’ll get a sense of how many numbers are out there beyond just the backers, which is important to figure out but we’re just planning on the backers right now, they’re our target audience.Strategy Informer: Have you thought up a title yet for Project Eternity?

Chris Avellone: No! I believe that is in Adam [Brennecke] and Josh [Sawyer]’s court, but currently it is just Project Eternity.

Hello, everyone. I'm Brandon Adler - Project Eternity's newest Producer and general schedule wrangler. I'm the dude that helps make sure the game's product is on time, on budget, and totally kickass.

I worked at Obsidian previously for over six years on projects like Neverwinter Nights 2 (base game, Mask of the Betrayer, and Storm of Zehir), Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3, and South Park. I came back to help make Project Eternity (which is about as close to my dream project as you can get) and I look forward to interacting with all of Project Eternity's passionate fanbase.

Rezzed

One new development is our very own Chris Avellone presented Project Eternity at Rezzed in Birmingham, UK. He showed off the approaches we’re taking with Project Eternity for the vertical slice and pipelines, and showcasing new concepts like the animat and Defiance Bay.

Concepting process for one of our creatures, the bronze-armored animats (Larger Version)

Animats are animated by the souls of ancient warriors that were extracted, purified, and bound into the armor. Copper is an especially strong binder for soul energy, which is why bronze is used for the animats. Copper is also often used in Engwythan (ancient residents of Eir Glanfath) architecture and magical items, including "skein steel", a fantastic alloy created with sinister soul magic.

Color concept and reanimation sequence of the animat. (Larger Version)

If you are interested in watching Chris' full presentation at Rezzed you can see it here (some language mildly NSFW).

Avellone's Arcanum Playthrough

Well, that's it for now. Over the next few weeks we will be talking about the vertical slice, the fulfillment system, and other goodies. So, stay tuned. As always, we love your feedback on our updates and game direction, so head over to the Project Eternity forums and let us know what you are thinking. Thanks for reading.Also

Chris has been prepping (and presenting) Eternity at Rezzed, once he’s back, you’ll get a new playthrough video in a future update.

Sunday - June 23, 2013

Project Eternity - Chris Avellone at Rezzed 2013

by Couchpotato, 00:47

Chris Avellone had a presentaion at 2013's Rezzed the UK PC and indie gaming convention organized by RockPaperShotgun and Eurogamer. The plan was to talk about and show more detail for Project Eternity.

Update: Due to technical issues, the presentation didn't actually start until around the 31 minute mark, so there was no time for a Q&A session.

Chris did however find the time to show a bunch of new screenshots, concept art and even some design documents from Wasteland 2. He also ran some gameplay footage, but it was just the prototype demo that we've already seen.

Wednesday - June 19, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #56, Paladins

In Project Eternity, we wanted paladins to maintain their sense of selfless passion and zeal without being bound to concepts like "alignment" or a universal moral code. We also wanted their mechanics to be distinctive from the other classes while reinforcing their role in the world. Area designer Bobby Null has always liked the marshal class from D&D 3.5, which is conceptually similar to the warlord in 4E: combat leaders who are at their best when they are augmenting their teammates. This is the approach that I took when developing Project Eternity's paladins. They have persistent modal auras, strong single-target healing and buff abilities (contrasting the broad AoE effects of clerics), and can passively grant bonuses to teammates in close proximity.

In the game's lore, paladins are zealous champions of a cause that may be religious, philosophical, or cultural in nature. The "foundational" paladins in this part of the world were the legendary elite guards of Darcozzi Palace in the Grand Empire of Vailia (now Old Vailia). They set standards for selfless dedication, unwavering loyalty, and inspiring leadership that have become the pillars for similar orders that have sprung up in the two millennia since they were founded. Even among orders where the chosen cause is perceived as bleak or malevolent, paladins always place the cause ahead of their own personal interests.

And he also shows what Wild Orlans look like.

Though we've previously shown one concept of a hearth orlan (the "orlan detective"), many people have asked and speculated about what the other orlans, the so-called wild orlans, look like. Wild orlans have the same general range of stature and build as hearth orlans, but are almost entirely covered with hair.

* Better use of space overall. Not all of the decorative elements need to be there. We would like to have more room for the ability icons in particular. * Re-working and re-positioning of the player menu (inventory, etc.). * Possibly vertically orienting the character portraits and ability icons on one side of the screen. The combat log pretty much has to be horizontally-oriented, but other than scrolling through it, that's a non-interactive element of the UI.

I have to say I think it's strange that people are requesting UI layouts with character portraits far away from action icons, floating wireframe UIs, and similar features. While it's true that BG1 and IWD1 used wrap-around UIs, that was because 640x480 base resolutions didn't allow us to fit all of the elements along one edge of the screen. As soon as we went to 800x600 in IWD2, we immediately went to a consolidated UI layout that made mouse movement much more efficient. I understand that a lot of people use hotkeys and we certainly plan to support that, but GUIs need to be functional for people who use them. Putting abilities 75%+ of the screen width away from the character portraits is really inefficient.

While I certainly think the idea of a bone and obsidian UI could be really cool looking [note: he's referring to a forum user's idea], it would also be very stark and high-contrast. I think it would wind up dominating the screen, regardless of the environment. Our outdoor environments, especially, will fall more in the BG and BG2 spectrum of colors, which is why we went with more subdued natural tones and copper accents. We can certainly look at alternatives, but I wanted to give feedback on that particular idea.

Wednesday - June 05, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #55

The Vertical Slice is just that, a cross section (think of it as a slice of bread cut out from the middle of a loaf) of the world of Project Eternity. At the end of this phase the game will be feature complete, and the content building portion of the team, including area designers, environment artists, and character artists can make shippable content now. Our Vertical Slice is eleven maps large; encompassing our village and dungeon from Prototype 2, and the dungeon and wilderness area from Prototype 1 (we call this area "The Valley of Hector" internally).

The content from the prototypes are refactored to fit within the context of the world and overall story of the game. Feature-wise, we are targeting to have the majority of the world building tools complete and all of the character classes playable up to level five.

Larger version - The above image is a vertical slice dungeon concept by Polina. Her paint-over will be used as reference for the polish pass.

Here are our current tasks that we are working on right now:

Art

Modeling Hide Armor for Male and Females - Hide armor has been challenging to model and texture with skin tinting because there's a lot of skin shown.

Creating Orlan Heads - This includes modeling differences for the Wild and Hearth ethnicities.

Polishing Prototype 2 Areas to "Beta" - Extra shine is put into the areas to make them feel more alive and varied.

Design

Creating the Vertical Slice Area Design Document - The designers are adding more content to the world and fleshing out the village with additional quests.

Designing and Coding the Class Abilities for the Cipher and Chanter - The Cipher and his "focus" powered spells are working, and now Tim Cain is working out the Chanter phrase system.

Programming

Coding up the Save/Load and the Persistence System - This entails saving and loading games, and making sure the current map state is preserved across area transitions.

Wrapping up the Area Designer Toolbox - Doors, encounters, traps, triggers, loot, NPCs, and creatures can all be placed and manipulated through script.

Spells and Ability Audit

This morning Josh emailed me a list of working class abilities and spells. I'm excited to say that we have 54 abilities and 51 functioning spells as of today! Most of the spells are at the alpha stage, meaning another pass will be done at a later date to add visual effects and sound effects.

UI Version #2

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on our UI mockups that Rob posted last week in Update #54. We loved everyone's proposed mockups and your discussions sparked some great ideas for the next iteration on the interface. We've already mocked up a new version that takes up less vertical space and is more compact overall. Once we feel it's ready to be critiqued, we will post it in a future update for more discussion.

Wednesday - May 29, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #54, Art Update

Above is a UI mockup that Kaz has put over the original Kickstarter image. What do you think?

I know what you are thinking. What the hell have the artists been doing?? The art in this game should be half done by now! Right?

That's what I want to know! Why isn't the game half-done already?

Well, as I've said before we're "professionals." We proceed in a highly-complex collaboration/iteration loop of blending design wants and dos, programming cans, think-they-cans and dos and artist wants, cans, can-but-don't-know-how-longs and dos. As you can see - and please don't get angry - this is all very technical. Know that: work is progressing.

Yeeeargh! Enough with your silly stupid words, Rob!! What the hell does that mean??

Uhh... not sure, but I'll tell you what I think it means:

You've read about Prototype 1 and then Prototype 2. Those were efforts to implement features that represent the functional and playable standard of our goal: an Infinity Engine style of game. Those efforts were focused collaborations of designing, programming and art-ing things, trying them out, addressing problems as they came up (visual, functional or otherwise failing to live up to our standard) and repeating. The art goals were held to an 80-90% complete (aka: unpolished). The remaining 10-20% of work will be left toward the end of the "next phase," as always there will be edits and modifications after initial implementation of art. The basic truth of this interactive artistic endeavor that we are involved in is that you can't know it's a worthwhile experience, until you make it, people play it, and then provide feedback. We adjust our work to that feedback - a feedback loop. Boom! Consider yourself educated.

The "next phase" is a Vertical Slice. This is a goal in which we focus on one part of the game within a shell of what is essentially the fully-featured game - relying on the things developed in the prototypes, as well as implementing a fully-functional UI, attempting to finalize all art and gameplay to a more polished standard, and accommodate design changes that are required to make the player experience more complete - as if this part were a finalized, short game in itself.

Besides this also environment artists, animators, character artists and concept artis share what they have been up to.

Friday - May 24, 2013

Project Eternity - Social Round-up #2

by Couchpotato, 00:22

Gamebanshee has more info on Project Eternity gathered from various social websites. Here is a little snip as it would be impossible to post eveything.

So, Project Eternity will have a unified inventory for all party members, as opposed to the Infinity Engine games' per-character inventory. That doesn't bother me so much, but what's your opinion of per-character inventories? You don't like them?

In a game where one player controls all party members, I don't think it adds anything to the game to split gear up across 6 screens. There's no mental challenge to the process of organizing items across the screens. It's just busywork.

If each companion has different encumbrance thresholds, it's not as simple as just splitting the inventory..There's also a roleplaying factor involved.

"This is my strong fighter, he carries the heavy stuff. This is my mage, he carries all the scrolls."

You could accomplish the same thing by color-coding a single grid to represent what parts are carried by what character. In practice, people playing IE games just drag items onto any available slot until a limit is hit, then drag it to someone else.

...

What limits will be imposed upon inventory? Weight? Size of items? Slot size? Will we see weak elf stuffed with 100 full plates of feather weight? Or party of barbarians and paladins with inventroy filled with 100 slots of beans?

In the current design, party Stash size (withdrawals only available at rest locations) is unlimited. Worn Equipment is slot-based and is the same for all characters (barring abilities or talents that do things like increase available weapon sets). The one area we haven't decided on in terms of capacity is the shared Pack, which is gear that is not actively worn but available for access outside of combat. However it is defined, it will always be displayed as a unified UI for the player so they aren't flipping between characters for what is, practically-speaking, a shared inventory.

Wednesday - May 15, 2013

Project Eternity - Post Funding Update #53, Monsters

by Myrthos, 12:37

In this latest post funding Kickstarter update for Project Eternity designer Bobby Null talks about the design of the creatures in the game.

One of my responsibilities has been creating the bestiary for Project Eternity. I'll admit, it's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot fun. Like most of the things we do here at Obsidian, the process has been very collaborative. We have a few high-level goals regarding this process on Project Eternity.

Creature Variety - The goal is to have a large library of creatures to use for the final game. Thus far, we're on track to meet this goal. The concept artists, modelers and animators have been tearing through the bestiary and delivering quality assets at a rapid pace.

Recognizable is Good - We don't want to try to reinvent the wheel with every single monster. As we've shown in an earlier update, we feel some classic monsters, like the ogre, are essential to capture the adventuring feel we are aiming for. Moving forward, we are committed to including monsters that we feel fans will appreciate, while giving the beasties flavor appropriate to the world of Project Eternity.

Different if Cool - We've already shown one of the unique creatures for Project Eternity in an earlier update, the skuldr. We will continue to create other unique, and often times bizarre, creatures to populate our world, but unique doesn't always need to feel bizarre. Different because it's cool is the goal.

So now that I've briefly discussed our high level goals, let's talk about a new creature: The Cean Gúla (KEN GOO-lah, "Blood Woman", Glanfathan), and the pipeline we use to get it through the concept phase.

Wednesday - May 08, 2013

Project Eternity - Post-funding Update #52

by Couchpotato, 08:45

Project Eternity has a new post-funding update that showsconcept art, and gives information on the monk class.

Monks in Eternity are different than you might expect. There are no restrictions on armor and weapons – you could wear plate and use a sword, if you wanted to, and the talent system is flexible enough so you could build a great monk that specialized in that gear. But at the core of this class is a little rule about how monks take damage. You see, when a monk gets hit, only part of the damage is inflicted on him or her immediately. The rest is redirected to a Wound, which is an effect that causes damage over time (called a DoT effect) to the monk. That slowly-ticking Wound would only seem to be delaying the inevitable result except for one thing: the monk can get rid of that Wound by using special attacks.

The monk gets all kinds of cool special attacks that do extra effects beyond simply damage and, as a side effect, also eliminate his Wounds. Some of their special attacks include:

Torment’s Reach - this ability increases the range of melee attacks by 200% for a short duration. Enemies between the monk and his or her target are also attacked. Costs 1 Wound to activate.

Turning Wheel - if the monk suffers from a DoT effect (including Wounds ticking down), he or she adds a proportional fire bonus to his or her melee damage. This is a passive ability which works automatically whenever the monk has any DoT effect.

Clarity of Agony - when used, this ability cuts the duration of hostile status effects in half. It lasts for a brief amount of time, halving both incoming effects and ones that are currently on the monk. Costs 2 Wounds.

Each of these attacks makes monks stronger in battle, and many also consume their Wounds, hopefully before those Wounds have done the damage the monks were originally supposed to take.

Culture Concept

Concept artist Kaz Aruga has been developing the look of some of Project Eternity's various cultures. So far, he's created concepts for people from the Dyrwood, the Vailian Republics, the Aedyr Empire, and the Valley of Ixamitl. We hope you like the range we've come up with. Let us know what you think!

Even the elves and orlans in Eír Glanfath migrated to the area within the past two thousand years; they don't have any apparent connection to the original residents and builders of the ancient structures.

...

Ethnicity and culture are separate characteristics in the game. Individual meadow folk can be from the Vailian Republics just as coastal aumaua can be from Aedyr. The common-name descriptions of ethnicities don't restrict where they can be from. Literally every ethnicity in our race document has a bit-by-bit description of what physical characteristics they have, including facial features, skin tones, hair colors (and textures), eye colors (and shapes), etc. E.g., only savannah folk, pale elves, and boreal dwarves have epicanthic folds. Of those, only boreal dwarves have them consistently.

...

Just as a point of reference, we've seen the use of Gaelic names for places and people, and now are told that the old English/Norse languages are being referenced, does this indicate a clash of cultures at some point? Or have the two arisen in unison and merged beyond the telling apart?

It's less a clash of cultures and more of the intermingling of them. Places settled by Aedyrans in the Dyrwood tend to have Eld Aedyran or regular Aedyran (i.e. plain English) names. The common names for some creatures are Glanfathan but others are Eld Aedyran or (rarely) Vailian. The cultures borrow terms from each other, too. The title of duc (ducs bels and ducs panits) is used in the Vailian Republics for the sovereign ruler of a city-state, but the Dyrwoodans borrowed it when they rebelled against the Aedyran Empire. Admeth Hadret was originally an erl palatine (palatine/palatinate also being borrowed from the Vailians), but he styled himself as a duc of the "free palatinate" during the rebellion.

...

At first it seemed the different cultures would be more in a high/late Middle period. From your recent answers, it seems that pretty much all the big human factions are actually in what would be a modern, colonial period. 1. So PE is more of a Renaissance/early modern world than a High/Late Medieval one? 2. Is there still some place for knights (vassal system...), Gothic Architecture, Medieval weaponery and other typical Middle Ages characteristics?

The Dyrwood is in the equivalent of a Renaissance/early modern tech level, but even Europe’s own Renaissances didn’t abandon earlier architecture and technology. Swords and armor were used alongside firearms for centuries (as they are in the Dyrwood, where firearms are still uncommon).

Rural communities in the Dyrwood tend to have Romanesque/Norman architecture, with Renaissance features (e.g. domes, symmetrical façades) found in large urban centers. Previous colonial cultures also tried to settle in the Dyrwood and their ruins tend to be more traditionally “Medieval”. In the village concept we released, the buildings are vaguely Romanesque with a few Renaissance features, but they are built adjacent to much older, rougher remnants of a castle and bridges from centuries ago.

If they had been there for more than a few thousand years, yes. Most people living in Aedyr are Thyrtan humans, "meadow folk". Their ethnic group is not native to Aedyr, but comes from the far north (like the Sceltrfolc elves). They migrated south over thousands of years. Their nickname, "meadow folk", is seemingly a misnomer but is still used because of their origin.

Similarly, the Grand Empire of Vailia (from which the Vailian Republics sprang) was farther south in the southern hemisphere, but the Calbandra people originally lived near the equator for many millennia (hence their name -- Calbandra = warm ring).

Additionally, no one really got why their name meant "warm ring" for a long time because the Vailians pioneered cartography and theories of the world's shape. To most others, Calbandra are "ocean folk".

Kaz is working on the clothing right now. It's interesting, because we have combinations of people and styles that aren't usually seen together (e.g. Vailians are essentially black Renaissance Italians) and I think Kaz is doing a good job of making each culture feel distinctive. We've already developed the Dyrwoodan and Vailian styles, and now Kaz is revisiting the Aedyrans to reflect their home climate more.

In Earth's history, Spanish and Portuguese explorers/conquistadors were often overdressed for the hot climates they found themselves in. Aedyrans have the opposite problem when they visit the Dyrwood. Their home climate is very hot and humid, so they are relatively underdressed for the Mediterranean/temperate climates of the Dyrwood.

For Dyrwoodan architecture, Rob and Polina are looking at Renaissance European architecture and also some of the colonial-era South American architecture. Because the Dyrwood is heavily colonized (and very recently), many of the urban buildings look much newer than they might in a traditional Medieval fantasy setting.

The Glanfathan architecture is much more fantastic. We can create shapes and structures that would not be possible/appropriate when using strictly Renaissance-era technology alone.

Wednesday - April 24, 2013

Project Eternity - prototype 2 Update

Last month we finished our prototype 1 build. In Update #47, Josh outlined our goals for the first prototype, which focused on establishing "that IE feel". Not only did we hit that mark with the look of our characters and environments, but we also hit our target with movement, combat, and gameplay systems. Core basics that you all expect from Project Eternity such as party movement, melee and ranged combat attacks, containers (with loot!), doors, using special class abilities and spell casting, area transitions, inventory and equipment are all in the game and functioning. We also established working character and environment pipelines - the art team is now able to create beautiful rendered areas, and we can model armor sets for all of our uniquely proportioned races. Additionally, we've established that we can efficiently concept, model and animate creatures for our soon to be growing bestiary.

More details on their first creature, art, design and programming can be found in the update.

Thursday - April 18, 2013

Project Eternity - George Ziets on the Setting

by Myrthos, 23:01

Obsidian's George Ziets has shared his views on the Project Eternity setting with Examiner.com.

1) Soul mechanics. I like the fact that this defining feature of the world affects almost every element of the setting. For example, we had a creature meeting this week, and we kept coming back to questions like, “Okay, given our soul mechanics, what does it mean to be (for example) undead in this world? What does it mean to be this other creature type? What kind of soul would this creature have? Why would it exist in our setting?” Our soul mechanics give us a strong foundation upon which to build the rest of the world, and in most cases, they result in logical reasons for subtle (or significant) differences between PE and other fantasy settings.

Wednesday - April 17, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #50, What is Project Eternity

Project Eternity is a party-based fantasy roleplaying game inspired by the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, and Planescape: Torment) set in an original world created by Obsidian Entertainment. The camera has a fixed axonometric (high angle) perspective (with zoom!). The environments are 2D backgrounds combined with 3D characters and visual effects.

Project Eternity's team is focusing on three core ideas that will capture the Infinity Engine experiences players loved so much:

A story that is both personal and far-reaching, with believable characters and factions that create compelling dilemmas for players.

Fun and challenging tactical combat that can escalate in difficulty through the use of optional game modes.

In addition there is an update of MCA's playthrough of Arcanum.

We’re doing something different with the Arcanum playthroughs with this update – instead of filming a large portion at once and then releasing that one session over several weeks in small 10 min chunks, we’re going to release smaller updates that allow us to respond more quickly to your feedback on the playthrough and then iterate on the next playthrough. In this episode, Avellone explores the small town of Shrouded Hills, deals with cowardly constables, explores trash bins, and finds out more about the cryptic ring from the Zephyr’s zeppelin crash. Virgil guest stars.

Wednesday - April 10, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #49: Water, Trees, Day/Night, Lighting

by Couchpotato, 08:25

Odsidian promised they would release a video showing some gameplay elements and they have delivered. I think it looks beautiful. What's your opinion?

Welcome. Today's update is a big one, though not by volume of text. Today we’re showing you our game in action. Specifically, we're showing what we've been doing for our exterior environments. The Infinity Engine games were known for their art, and we wanted to hit the high standard of visual quality established by games like the Icewind Dale series. We also wanted to introduce dynamic elements into the environment that were mostly absent from the classic games, like dynamic water, movement in foliage, and dynamic lighting of the scene.

In a 2D game, this required our programmers and artists to come up with some creative solutions. What they came up with surprised us initially and it continues to amaze us. While we are still working on refining some of the dynamic elements, we're very happy with the progress we've been able to make and hope you feel the same way. Special thanks to Hector Espinoza, our lead environment artist, and Michael Edwards, our rendering programmer, who did a lot of amazing work to bring this environment to life.

Wednesday - April 03, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #48, Documentary and Arcanum

In Update #23 Feargus announced that Obsidian would fund a documentary of the making of Project Eternity without using a dime from the Kickstarter funding. Here's a behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes and some other tidbits about the documentary.

We've been working with the documentary team, Tony Jacobsen and Michael Mitchell from Creative Lane Media, for some time. Tony and Mike are very professional guys with years of experience making films, and have experience working with the games industry. They will be with following us with their fancy cameras for the entire production of Project Eternity.

Our documentary will be a full movie and released in its entirety when the game is complete. We are targeting a 45 minute film that covers the entire process of the making of Project Eternity from the early days of the Kickstarter, into preproduction, all the way through production to finishing it up and going gold. There will be footage from our team meetings, informal discussions, scrums, and major milestone events.

When can I get the Documentary? The documentary will be released when Project Eternity is finished. We will have more details when we get closer to the Project Eternity beta.

How do I get it? If you already backed at the $20/$25 tier level (and Slacker Backers via PayPal thus far) and above you will be able to stream it. At the $35 tier level and above you will be able to download it, and at the $140 tier level (and physical tiers above) we will include a DVD / Blu-ray. You can still get access to the documentary stream if you donate to the project today via the Slacker Backer pledge at the Eternity website.

Saturday - March 30, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview with MCA @ PC Gamer

by Aries100, 20:58

PC Gamer talked to Chris Avellone at GDC on varius subjects from Fallout: New Vegas, Wasteland 2, to Torment: Tides of Numenera. In the interview, he also talks about Obsidian's own title, Project Eternity. As always, a quote:

You mentioned the different cultures. We saw some of that in the early concept art, where we had the Inuit-inspired dwarf. Do you have a particular favorite culture that puts a spin on an existing fantasy trope?

Well, my favorite race is the Orlans. They're feline-based, and I don't think there's actually an equivalent of them in standard fantasy fare. Partially because I'm a cat person, and I really like the idea that they're sort of the stealthy, guerrilla class. That kind of appeals to me. And you know, the trap-making. They're very anti-slaver, because the slavers love to pick on them. So that's caused some interesting paranoia and hostility in their culture.

Wednesday - March 27, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #47, Odds and Ends

by Myrthos, 12:03

In this update Josh Sawyer talks about the current development status of Project Eternity now that they have the first prototype done and are working towards their second prototype. Furthermore the Torment and Dwarven Forge's Game Tiles are promoted.

We've got a lot of things in progress on Project Eternity right now. As Darren wrote in the last update, we're winding down our first prototype. We just did an audit of the work that remains from the first prototype and where we will be going with the next prototype. Our first prototype allowed us to prove a lot of the basics of movement, character design, stealth, combat controls, inventory, resting, quests, scripted skill interactions, dialogue, status effects, and the ability and spell systems. There's still a lot of work to do on all of those elements, but by the end of the prototype, it really did have "that IE feel". How I organized and moved my characters, how I used them differently in combat, how I explored areas very much captured the feeling of the Infinity Engine games in gorgeous high-res environments.

Tuesday - March 26, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview @ DigiPen

While the pitch for Project Eternity was an indisputable success, the project likely wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without a period of uncertainty for the studio. Obsidian had been several months into development for an unannounced title when the game’s publisher pulled the plug, leaving the California-based studio little choice but to lay off staff and start shopping for more work.

As one of the programmers who worked on the canceled game, Brennecke joined in the effort of pitching new game ideas to publishers. That meant spending weeks writing design documents, prototyping game ideas, and typically getting nowhere fast.

“It takes a lot of time to go through the pitch process. And right now is not the best time in the world to pitch new games,” Brennecke says.

Fortunately, Brennecke realized that working with a publisher wasn’t the only way to fund their next project. A shift was occurring in the industry, as many game companies began skirting big-name publishers altogether by going directly to the fans to fund games, primarily through Kickstarter. One of the biggest success stories happened in March 2012, when indie studio Double Fine Productions brought in more than $3.3 million to fund an old-school adventure game. Months later, Obsidian’s friends at developer InXile found similar success with their game Wasteland 2.

Wednesday - March 13, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #46

In this week’s update, we’re back with me for one more! We’ll cover what the team’s up to currently.

To start, every one of Obsidian’s games goes through a series of phases. Those phases, chronologically, are: Prototype, Vertical Slice, Production, and Finalization. At the end of each phase, the team and owners do an analysis of the progress; we verify that we’ve hit key goals, and (hopefully) officially move the project into the next phase.

Wednesday - March 06, 2013

This update on Project Eternity shares information on the backer portal, 3 videos of MCA's play-through of Arcanum and a promotion for two Kickstarter games (of which one is Torment).

Q: So, what’s happening with the backer portal?A: I’m personally busy putting together a whole new Project Eternity website, which includes our backer portal, RSS feeds (popular request!), as well as including information and artwork about the universe of Eternity. What we know about classes, races, the gods, and more, and this site will continue to evolve as more and more is designed and released.

It is a big job though for just little ol’ me, so it’s still going to be a few weeks as I work everything out, but we’ll keep you in the know. Oh, and backer badges come with this system as well.

The backer portal will also be a great resource for those of you in the upper tiers who are submitting item, character, or location designs. Speaking of which...!

Q: When will I be able to start submitting my item, character, or location designs?A: The guys have been talking quite a bit about this recently and have already started designing out the forms. Our current plan is to have those of you with those tiers be able to input them directly in our backer portal, and you can revise them at any time up to a certain point down the road (which we’ll let you all know – this point is when we would send out your text for translation, and it becomes expensive from this point to make edits.) But until then, start thinking about the concept for the thing you’d like to add! Adam will have an update on that in the coming weeks with more detail. We’d like to make sure there’s enough backstory and content available for you to draw connections from, and our new website will be the place for that.

Tuesday - March 05, 2013

Project Eternity - Interview @ NowGamer

As part of their series of Kickstarter interviews NowGamer talked to Project Eternity's Executive producer and lead programmer, Adam Brennecke.

Have you made or anticipated any changes to the original pitch? If so, how did the community react?

So far we haven’t really changed much of anything. Since it’s a pretty clear project, the idea is very clear and I think that’s why it’s so successful. People understand what we were trying to pitch. And we’ve got a really good idea of how to make this game.

There are little details here and there, since it’s an RPG there are tons of little rules and other things here and there that, through development, somethings work and somethings don’t and we have to make those changes.

Since we’re pretty clear and honest with our backers they’re pretty cool about us having to make changes to stuff. As long as we explain it properly and explain why we’re making that change most people have been pretty cool.

How has Kickstarter funding changed the development process?

We try and do an update every week and it is a lot of work for us to do that, but we like sharing what we’re doing and discussing it with the community. The community has a lot of great ideas and they’re a good sounding board. Josh Sawyer might have an idea for combat and we can just get it out there and see what people think about it.

Then we can make adjustments as necessary. It’s very different to traditional game development where you have to do a lot of work behind closed doors. It’s great that we can be really open and get things out there as we make them. It’s been a lot of fun.

Wednesday - February 27, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #44, Rules of Engagement

Last week, our art director, Rob, showed you our godlike concepts and dazzled you with an in-depth technical breakdown of how we're doing animation rigging on the project. This week, we'll be talking about a different technical subject, but one that's more connected to gameplay: engagement -- specifically, melee engagement.

Melee engagement is a solution to two common problems in the Infinity Engine games: melee characters' inability to control an area and ranged characters' ability to "kite" melee characters. In the Infinity Engine games, melee characters could be quite powerful in toe-to-toe combat, but many opponents found ways to foil those characters with little difficulty. Fast characters could easily rush around a slower melee character with impunity and ranged characters could backpedal perpetually out of reach.

If you're familiar with D&D 3E/3.5/4E/Pathfinder's attack of opportunity mechanics, Project Eternity's melee engagement fills a similar role by making melee combatants "sticky". Coming near a melee combatant means being drawn into Engagement with him or her, a state that can be risky to get out of.

Here's how it works: when two opposed combatants come near each other and one of them a) has a melee weapon equipped b) is not moving and c) is not currently at his or her maximum limit of engagement targets (the standard is 1), the other character will be Engaged.

When an opponent is Engaged by an attacker, moving any significant distance away from the attacker will provoke a Disengagement Attack. A Disengagement Attack has an inherent Accuracy bonus, does significantly more damage than a standard attack, and will call a hit reaction animation while momentarily stopping the character's movement.

When it's initiated, a Disengagement Attack automatically breaks Engagement on the target, but if the target is also the attacker's current melee target, the attacker will typically be able to re-establish Engagement before the target can move farther away. In this manner, melee combatants, especially ones that have high Accuracy and damage per hit, have a solid mechanic for keeping enemies close to them -- or making the cost of escape extremely expensive.

Of course, there are other ways to end Engagement. If the attacker switches to a non-melee weapon or performs a non-melee-based action, Engagement immediately ends. If the attacker moves away from their Engagement targets, is paralyzed, knocked down, or otherwise prevented from maintaining a threat, Engagement will also immediately end. If the attacker has a limited number of Engagement targets (as most do) and switches his or her attack focus to a different character, Engagement immediately ends.

We believe that Engagement can give AI a clear "decision point" where they can evaluate the threat of their new status and choose the appropriate course of action. For player-controlled characters, it makes melee enemies more potent threats and presents players with tactical challenges to solve.

We want Engagement to be a mechanic that players and enemies can mess with using a variety of class Abilities and general Talents, so we will be experimenting with a variety of elements to that end:

Fighters' Defender mode allows them to engage two additional targets and increases the range at which they engage targets. This gives fighters much greater capability to control the area around them.

The limited-use Escape ability lets rogues break Engagement without provoking a Disengagement Attack. It is generally best used when the rogue's enemy is preoccupied with another target.

Barbarians can use Wild Rush to temporarily ignore the movement stop and hit reactions from Engagement and Disengagement Attacks, respectively -- though they can still suffer massive damage while powering through.

The wizards' Grimoire Slam allows them to attack an enemy in melee with their magically-charged grimoires, unleashing a concussive wave of energy on contact. If it hits, the attack knocks the target back, usually far enough to break Engagement in the process.

Additionally, creatures may have their own special abilities related to Engagement and Disengagement Attacks. We hope that the system itself is easy to understand but allows for increasingly complex tactical considerations over the course of the game.

When did Project Eternity really become something concrete you knew you would work on ? Why did you specifically choose Kickstarter to launch your game ?

Kickstarter was something we'd been examining for a while, several months before we launched, in fact - I'd put a poll up on the Obsidian site (http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-158-if-obsidian-kickstarter/) which got us a lot of interest, and then once Wasteland 2 proved that there was a market for the seemingly-dead old school RPG model, we started to chew over methods for tackling Kickstarter and seeing if we had any ideas that would be a good fit. Even after Eternity, we're still examining Kickstarter in case we want to do another in the future.

Wednesday - February 20, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #42, Pretty and Technical

by Myrthos, 14:03

Art Director Rob Nesler brings us the latestProject Enternity update about the work their technical animator Antonio is doing and an image of a godlike made by Polina.

The godlike are the children of humanoids (most often humans) who have been "blessed" (or cursed, depending on personal or social view) with the physical manifestation of a divine spark granted by the gods. Godlike manifest their divine heritage in a variety of ways: wings, horns, strange birthmarks, talons, odd eyes - but they always manifest it somehow. BTW, in case you missed it, this is a playable "race".

And on the work of Antonio:

If you recall, in the last update, I wrote this little nugget:

"Antonio Is our Technical Animator. He makes rigs, writes scripts that make rigs, and rigs the rigs. It’s all very technical. You wouldn’t understand. He’s a professional."

So, specifically ROB, what does Antonio do that will make Project Trenton/Eternity awesome? Generally, technical animators program scripts using languages like MEL or Python to extend or enhance the functionality of existing off-the-shelf apps like Maya, Max, or Softimage. These scripts are often programs running within the larger app, but sometimes they are utilities that exist outside the application to assist in conversion or batching operations. These often can be purchased, but sometimes they themselves don’t have all the features our animators want so...

NO! Specifically ROB! What the hell does he do??? Okay, okay, for Project Trenton/Eternity Antonio has written, a few, and re-written a couple times the following, and it's all called DNA (Design New Actor).

Firstly, there is the Export Rig, and this is not so unique to 3D character animation. This is a highly optimized skeleton that represents only the bones that the actual actor mesh is weighted to. For a humanoid character these bones would be named: Pelvis, Femur_Rt and Femur_Lt., etc. Vertices of the visible textured geometry, that the player sees, are all attached to these bones with various amounts of strength, so the character will appear to bend and flex more naturally. Sometimes these bones will have physics applied to them, like pony tails. This is less a rig and more of: simply the skeleton that the other rigs interact with, but these are the only bones that go into the game, and we call it the "export rig". Antonio builds this skeletal hierarchy to fit the expected proportions of the character, and character modelers build character meshes to match visible body parts to the locations of bones, so that -- for example -- the bendy part between the upper_arm_rt and lower_arm_rt ends up being where a humanoid creature, as designed, would expect an elbow to be.

Wednesday - February 06, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #41, Dwarves and Doors

One of the goals in preproduction was to figure out how we could make character modeling pipeline be as efficient as possible. The problem is fairly complex: All of the six playable races, human, elf, dwarf, aumaua, orlan, and the god-like can wear armor, boots, gloves, helmets (...well, some have trouble wearing helmets, but we will talk about that some other day...) and have other options that the player can customize like facial hair, hair style and skin color. We also have tons of armor variations and types of armor, like plate, brigandine, leather, and mail. (Josh loves his armor). Ideally, our artist would only need to model one armor piece - let's say plate body armor - and have it fit all six of our playable races even if the races are all of different proportions and body structure. At the end of the day the same model for plate armor could fit a slender four-foot-tall orlan and a burly seven-foot-tall aumaua. The goal for January was to build a system to allow us to do this very thing.

Project Eternity - Update #40, Ziets on Pantheon Design

Building a PantheonOne of our first steps was to think about gods. Deities can be a good starting point when developing a world. They reflect the views and beliefs of the world’s inhabitants, and they can inspire ideas for characters, organizations, and conflicts.

You’ve already heard a few of our gods mentioned in passing: Magran, goddess of fire and war; Berath, god of cycles, doors, and death; Eothas, god of light and redemption. Josh invented these gods when he was first developing the world, and they play important roles in the region where the game will be set. But we’ll need a lot more gods to fill out the pantheon.

Here are a few of the elements we consider for each new deity:

What is the god's name, and what are his/her "aliases" (e.g., "The Twinned God" for Berath).

What is the god's portfolio? That is, what aspects of life or the world do they represent (e.g., mortality, greed, summer, commerce)?

What allies and foes do they have amongst the other gods?

What are their symbols?

How do they manifest in the mortal world?

We list this information for each deity, as well as providing a detailed description. Players won’t necessarily get to see all this stuff, but it’s useful background for the art and design teams, so that the world feels like a consistent, coherent whole.

One other thing to bear in mind: for the most part, our deities aren’t good or evil. They’re somewhere in between – closer to the multi-dimensional gods of the ancient world. Every deity has his or her own agenda, which isn’t bound by notions of alignment. Sometimes they can be helpful and benevolent. Other times – not so much.

Wednesday - January 23, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #39

by Myrthos, 12:21

In the latest update of Project Eternity, Josh Sawyer talks about the basics of the "non-core" classes, cooldown system (or lack thereof), how attacks are resolved, and on the evolution of the armor system. In addition it shows the dungeon tileset test render is shown and a shakycam of some of the combat basics running in engine. With the exception of the last, everything is both in text and in a video.

A:First drink coffee then check my e-mail and look to see if there are any meetings that I need to prepare for. Then I usually look over the work from the day before. I like to always go back with a fresh set of eyes to see what worked and then I'll make some notes/changes. After all that I get to animating the fixes or I'll move onto a new animation.

Wednesday - January 09, 2013

Project Eternity - Update #37

The team has returned from our cozy elfhomes, and we are re-energized and excited to get back to work on Project Eternity. Without further adieu, we had promised backer details in this update, so let's start off with those. Thanks to all of your extremely generous donations, our final backer numbers for our crowdfunding phase are: $3,986,929 from 73,986 Kickstarter backers and $324,650 from roughly 5,698 unique PayPal backers (not including the almost 500 slacker backers who have contributed since the crowdfunding phase ended!) For the phase, we earned about $4,311,600 before any fees from Kickstarter and the payment services. (This does include some losses from failed charges, returns, etc.)

We are continuing to work on fulfillment and are slowly getting in contact with our backers about specifics. The last of the $350 tier loot bags are being sent out this week, and Chris Avellone is starting to draw Troll Avatars for the $750 tier backers. As we continue forward in pre-production, we will have more information for the higher tier design and art related rewards and how backers will be able to participate in designing your items, NPCs, adventuring parties, etc. The backer site is coming together and the plan is to have it up and running by the end of the month. Thank you for your patience and for those of you who will be designing goodies for the game, we’ll be in touch once we’re ready with your templates to fill out.

Wednesday - December 19, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #36

by Myrthos, 12:41

Josh Sawyer brings us a lengthy update on Project Infinity about resolution and scaling, movement and combat feel, UI design and the four core classes and advancement.

As players advance their characters, they have the ability to choose class-specific abilities and more class-neutral talents (more like perks or feats) to customize their character capabilities. If you want to keep your fighters very low maintenance, there are a large number of passive fighter abilities and combat-oriented talents that you can buy. If you'd like to make a fighter that's much more "active-use" (more like a 4E fighter), you can choose to buy more modal and active abilities. Similarly, while all wizards gain additional spells, you can use talents to boost a wizard's damage with implement weapons and Blasts, making them more useful when you're not having them chain-cast a series of limited-use spells.

The same also applies to skills, which are used for a variety of non-combat purposes. All classes start out with bonuses in the skills that their classes most commonly use, but players can choose to reinforce or play against that top. If you want to make a paladin who delights in picking locks, you can do that and get a lot of utility out of the skill -- though the character will never be quite as good as a rogue who specializes in it.

Friday - December 14, 2012

Project Eternity - Interview @ Gamers.de

G: The setting reminds me of some kind of a „new world”-scenario. It is planed that your group will be able to use a ship to venture to another continent at the course of the adventure? Personally, the thought about an Infinity Engine-quest line on a ship excites me. It would be a perfect scenario for romantic adventures as well!

JS: We have not yet decided all of the places you can travel in this game, but the Dyrwood is the "new world" for the settlers and there is a lot of ship travel in the area.

G: Regarding romances, relationships were always important elements in the IE-Games, especially in "Baldur's Gate 2". Will it be possible for our PC to engage in a relationship?

JS: We aren't currently focusing much attention on romances on Project Eternity. I would only want to include them if they feel like a natural fit. As we develop the companion characters, we'll see where their plot arcs take them.

Wednesday - December 12, 2012

Project Eternity - Utility and Balance in Game Design

by Myrthos, 12:45

Josh Sawyer has made a new video as an answer to a question posed to him on his Formspring account.

When you write about how all classes in Project Eternity should be "useful", what does that mean? Does it mean they need to be equally powerful and "balanced"? If so, what does that even mean in a single player, party-based RPG?

Project Eternity - Update #35, Meet Developer Berman

Q: Hi Dimitri! What do you do on the Project Eternity team?A: Hi everyone! I make sure all characters and creatures meet our set quality bar as they enter the game, this includes creation of high poly and low poly models, textures and materials, and occasional skinning and rigging. I work closely with animators, programmers, and designers to make sure our stuff looks and behaves as best it can, and also prototype new systems if we find something particularly cool we can do that the players will enjoy seeing. Occasionally I will jump over and help out the environment guys if they need help with complex set pieces.

Thursday - December 06, 2012

Project Eternity - Interview @ Iron Tower Studio

3. So, a brand new world, with elves, dwarves, the godlike and the odd, as well as souls and firearms. How do the firearms fit in there from the design perspective?

I think early firearms are interesting and I've enjoyed reading about their use in late Medieval and early modern Europe. From a gameplay perspective, they pack more of a punch than bows and crossbows, but they have worse accuracy and take much longer to reload. They're also particularly good at penetrating wizards' arcane veils, which are commonly used for defense. In our setting, I believe the presence of firearms helps shift the feeling of the world away from the equivalent of Earth's High Middle Ages and into the Late Middle Ages and early modern period. Europe's early modern period was a time of domestic social unrest and extensive exploration by imperial powers. I think those topics aren't explored a lot in fantasy RPGs (Maztica [RIP] being a notable exception) and the presence of firearms helps give the feeling of that age.

4. Speaking of arcane veils and such, one of the most praised features in BG2 was the mage duels. In BG a wizard was an annoying pest lurking behind fighters and waiting to be shot full of arrows. In BG a wizard was an impregnable juggernaut, capable of wiping out your entire party, if it was caught unprepared. What should we expect in Project Eternity?

Personally, I believe AD&D elevated the "glass cannon" conception of wizards to an un-fun place. It's cool that, especially in 2nd Edition, wizards had so many spells to use, but in Baldur's Gate II, I believe it resulted in more-or-less strict combat puzzles rather than loose combat puzzles or tactical challenges. If the only viable way through a fight is to use a specific sequence of spells, that's not something that you tactically opt to do -- it's the thing you must do to move forward. And in many of those fights, the only way to figure out what spells to use is to trigger the fight, get wiped, reload, and try again.

I think we can still have powerful, high-threat wizards in Project Eternity without using rock-paper-scissors defense and counter mechanics. I'd like to present players with challenges that make them think of a variety of solutions. I want them to feel like they can be flexible and adaptive when an unforeseen challenge appears. If the game comes out and I see walkthroughs that all suggest the exact same tactics for going through a tough fight, I believe that's a failure on my part.

Mark is our Lead Animator, and he knows his sh-tuff, but he made the Medicine ball. Needless to say, he will not be asked to make any more weapons. No no, it just so happens, that he was making it so he could test physics on weapons. So, it’s all good--we don’t care what things look like right now, we care about making things that matter, and making them right. Lately Mark has been testing cloth physics on our characters, as well as physics on weapons, and attachments. Prior to that he was building a basic set of traversal animations and getting them into the game. Crucial.

Friday - November 30, 2012

Project Eternity - TotalBiscuit Interview

TotalBiscuit invites Adam Brennecke from Obsidian Entertainment to talk a bit about the upcoming and highly anticipated RPG, Project Eternity. Unfortunately there is no video footage available at this time, except for a showcase of early concept art.

Wednesday - November 28, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #33

by Dhruin, 12:24

There's a new update for Project Eternity, announcing Paypal donations are closing in a week and also providing a current development update:

The Project Eternity team is tackling a number of different things in pre-production including story and world building, creating the look of the Aumaua and Orlans, character customization, combat, and fancy rendering R&D.

Here are a few bits on current developments:

The narrative team is creating the world almanac which contains all the information about the people and history of Project Eternity. Right now they are fleshing out the pantheon of gods. Do you have any crazy or wacky ideas for gods? Share your ideas in the forums!

The artists and programmers have been working on character customization. The system allows for individual pieces of armor to show up on your characters such as boots, gloves, and chest armor. When you swap armor, the character's torso model and texture are also swapped out. There are thousands of different armor, weapon, head, and hair customization models for each race (male and female too!), and we need to make sure that the system can organize and manage all of these character assets.

Lastly, the picture is from an early test environment area using temporary art assets. The red shapes represent collision geometry that will block pathfinding and line-of-sight. The light blue/greenish color represents the walkmesh geometry which determines where characters can walk. We use this area to test tech features that we are building. For example, we are using the cemetery in the lower left to test out complex party pathfinding. If you look carefully, you can see two test characters in the picture.

Wednesday - November 21, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #32, Meet Steve Weatherly

A:I'm a gameplay programmer primarily responsible for making combat happen. What that means is that I look at what Josh and Tim design for the game, and tell them it can never be done. After that, they tell me it has to get done, so then I figure out a way to make it happen. I spend most of my day writing code, either for AI (to make the enemies act like they know what they're doing), or the underlying code that makes characters fight and take damage, etc. I'm also our chief Reddit ambassador, which I sort of fell into but it has been a lot of fun.

Friday - November 16, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #31, Story Update

Today's update isn't about lore as much as it is about the focus and process of developing our central plot. I'm not going to spoil any details of the story, but I do want to share what we're working on.

When we develop stories at Obsidian, we often ask ourselves (and each other), "What's the conflict and why do I care about it?" and, "What is my range of roles in resolving the conflict?" "RPG" means a lot of different things to different people. For us, it's important to let the player decide who he or she is in the story. That means when you set aside class, race, magic missiles, and all of the other goodies, the player needs to be able to define his or her own motivations, attitudes toward others, and ways of resolving problems in the story.

Finding the right level of player freedom and clarity of purpose can be difficult. It's tricky to develop scenarios that can convincingly motivate characters of many races and classes, many backgrounds, and many moral and ethical stances. A conflict that is too "hands-off" or impersonal (e.g. a political conflict that doesn't directly involve the player) can make it difficult for players to connect to it. A conflict that is extremely personal may rub players the wrong way if it assumes too much about their character or if it feels like their choices don't have a large enough impact on the world around them.

Because this is the first story your characters will shape in this world, we want to start with something small that grows into something larger. As we have hinted before, the story opens with the player's character witnessing a supernatural event that puts him or her in a difficult situation. The full ramifications of what you become a part of are not immediately apparent, but you quickly become aware that you have... new problems. Dealing with these problems makes you realize that resolving your situation is inexorably linked to the fates of many others. In some cases, these "others" are individuals. In others, they are much larger groups of people. You will get to interact with them all in various ways over the course of the story. If we do a good job in developing these groups and characters, the decisions you make in the course of resolving your problems will be interesting and difficult to make.

That's what we're aiming for, but that doesn't necessarily tell you what we've been doing. On this project, the process started with a rough idea for a story and a theme that went along with it. The story itself wasn't that important; it was just an idea to get us moving. What followed were critiques of the story's premise, the unfolding of the plot, the player's motivation and involvement, and the scope of the conflicts the player faces from the beginning through the end. For the past few weeks, we've been exchanging various small ideas, big ideas, minor tweaks, radical overhauls, and brand new storylines. Through it all, we regularly return to the questions I posed up above: "What's the conflict and why do I care about it?" and, "What is my range of roles in resolving the conflict?" We can (and do) write about all sorts of character and location ideas, subplots and interesting takes on themes, but until we answer those questions in a way we believe will be compelling to your characters and all that they may be, we still have work to do.

We like to develop fun ideas we come up with and every once in a while we delight at some clever character or situation we think of, but for us, it's more important for you to feel clever, for you to feel like you can take control of a situation -- by whatever means you see fit. Until we believe we have a few gems on our hands, we'll keep the Story Gnomes digging in the mines on your behalf.

Tuesday - November 13, 2012

Project Eternity - Interview @ PureSophistry

Is the development side of the game going to be that different from previous titles you’ve made?

Now that we’ve gone through the funding, what’s different is that we are publishing it. So that is going to be something a little new. On the development side a lot of us have been doing this for 20 years, but the one big change is ensuring fan involvement. Really invite people into the process, we are working on how we are going to do that right now, websites, webblogs and constant updates for the fans. On the publishing side, we have had a lot of contact in the publishing world but it is a little bit different , but we’re up for it.

Have there been any ideas from the nearly 75 thousand contributors that you’ve heard, or read that maybe you never considered for the vision of Project Eternity?

That’s a good question, whats interesting about RPG’s, the games are huge and broad and come from a rich pen and paper foundation, so I don’t want to say there’s no new ideas. But a lot of what we do is adapted on already proven methods. An example would be someone was saying in the comments section the other day, and I know this may sound dorky- but he said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if after I come back from a quest, instead of just selling off my stuff to a vendor I could invest my money into a store? Earning money that way?” It’s nothing something we ever considered and we are actually talking about and looking at if we can add that to the game.

Obsidian has these really robust features like perma-death and low intelligence characters are you considering bringing back that way to play?

Games have changed a little bit since then, it’s one of those thing where we have to think about what’s right for Project Eternity. Is it about the player playing someone who goes, “Ugh Urgh Ooh” while it was entertaining in Fallout, it still a conversation tier that made sense. In the end when it comes to the companions and perma death; RPG’s are all about options and choices, and even in choice in how you want to play this version of the game and that’s something Josh REALLY feels strongly about. Having features like that, that can be turned on.

Sometimes people think adding options to a change is just designer and game developers not making a choice (laughs) “we’ll just give a players a choice, makes it easy” that sorta thing! In the case, for an RPG I think that’s appropriate. When you go back to the DnD games, we made a choice in Icewind Dale to have Max Hitpoints on by default- a lot of times…because wizards would get killed in the first 7 minutes of the game. But for those who want a true DnD feeling they could turn it on.

So that’s how we look at it, with perma death you can have that experience. We also know the side effects of that though, usually when players turn on perma death all it does is force them to reload when someone dies. For the people who want to have that Ironman experience, we have you covered.

Right now we are knee deep in pre-production. Pre-production is the period of time at the beginning of development where everything is planned and prototyped, production schedules are made, and pipelines are constructed. I'm not talking about oil pipelines here - I'm talking about asset pipelines. An asset pipeline can be described like an oil pipeline - First the asset is made by a content creator (like an artist), next the asset is processed by a tool so that the game understands what the heck it is, and finally the asset is placed into the game world in its final location. All of the different types of assets (stuff) require a custom pipeline. Pipeline creation is one of the many problems we are tackling right now in pre-production.

Friday - November 02, 2012

Project Eternity - Interview @ LFG.hu

Decisions, moral or otherwise, have an impact on the plotline, factions, and companions. Without giving anything too specific away, we want the breadth of reactivity (personal and world-wise) to be along the lines of Fallout 2, Torment, and Fallout: New Vegas, all of which we felt were great examples of being able to make an impact on the environment.

Lastly, I wanted to clarify – “moral” decisions aren’t necessarily our focus. Sometimes the right way to determine the course of a nation’s growth or a person’s growth is to simply make decisions with what you know of the world and in accordance with your outlook as a player, and the choices you have to make can all seem equally valid in achieving the goal you desire – do you sternly punish someone who’s drifted from their responsibilities, or do you reach out a helping hand to lift them up? Which one might help the individual more in the end if you really want to help them? At that point, the decision becomes a personal one, and says more about you as a player rather than any attempt to game the system or force a good/evil result with a group, person, or faction.

Do you plan many possible companions you can add to your party or do you prefer less companions with rich background and personality?

We prefer to let the player choose. We have two different breakdowns in companions – one are the limited cast of extremely detailed companions (like Planescape: Torment and NX2: Mask of the Betrayer), but the player can also choose to either take no companions at all, or go to the Adventurer’s Hall (a stretch goal that was made possible by the players – thank you!) and recruit a selection of mercenaries there of their own choosing, not ours.

You've stated in the past that you don't like romances in games—at least to the extent that they've been done in games thus far. Were you to implement a romance subplot in Project Eternity, what would it involve?

........So if I were to implement a romance subplot in Eternity - I wouldn’t. I’d examine interpersonal relationships from another angle and I wouldn’t confine it to love and romance. Maybe I’d explore it after a “loving” relationship crashed and burned, and one or both was killed in the aftermath enough for them to see if it had really been worth it spending the last few years of their physical existence chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise. Or maybe I’d explore a veteran’s love affair with his craft of murder and allowing souls to be freed to travel beyond their bleeding shell, or a Cipher’s obsession with plucking the emotions of deep-rooted souls to try and see what makes people attracted to each other beyond their baser instincts and discovers love... specifically, his love of manipulating others.

Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" or does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian?

If armor types like hide (or scale, or mail) should remain viable on their own, how should that "upgrade" be expressed to the player? Functional descriptors like "fine scale", "superior hide", etc.? Cultural or material descriptors like "Vailian doublet", "iron feather scale"? Olde tyme numerical descriptors like "scale armor +1", "half-plate +2"?

Is it okay for an upgrade from a visual type of armor to maintain its relative position to other armor types even if "realistically" that upgraded armor is now probably superior in protection to other armor types? E.g. an armored jack or brigandine armor is probably more protective than even nice suit of leather armor... but mechanically, we're presenting it as an upgrade of a padded (doublet) armor type.

Darren Mohahan talks about the fullfilment system as well. A quote, too:

First off, I wanted to announce that we’re developing a fulfillment site, which we’re hoping to have online in the next month or two (I was hoping to have it up sooner, but my first baby is coming into the world in the next few days, eeep!). Everyone who backed the project on Kickstarter and/or PayPal will be e-mailed details that will give you credit on that site. After logging in, you will be able to:

Confirm the tier of choice that you wanted. A few of you donated on Kickstarter, and then topped up via PayPal, so you’ll be able to select the exact tier you wanted. Confirm any add-ons you wanted that weren’t easy to specify on Kickstarter or via PayPal.

One of the first things mentioned about Project Eternity was the concept of Souls being important and a source of power, that you were interested what world building ideas are generated from that design mechanic. Where did the inspiration behind this concept come from ? I've heard many people mention NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer, although I personally thought of Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader.

It actually came out of some thoughts I had about the physical and metaphysical underpinnings of our own world. When worldbuilding, I think a lot of designers want to explain everything up front. There's obvious value in defining how the world works because it helps everyone wrap their heads around what the setting is about. Over the years, I've felt that breaking down the supernatural into easy-to-comprehend chunks drains the magic from it. Compare this to our own observation and understanding of the physical world. Public reaction to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle was very telling. Despite the scientific community's general requests to stop calling it the "God particle", the public and media couldn't help themselves. A discovery that potentially explains, if not the "why", at least the "how" of existence is appealing.

A quote on the art style

Regarding the art style of the game, what games in particular have inspired the look and feel of the 2D Backdrops, Portraits, Avatars and Paperdolls? (for example IWD1 for backdrops, ToEE for avatars etc)

We look at Icewind Dale levels for a lot of our inspiration. They were beautiful settings full of atmosphere, interesting architecture, and a ton of cool, hand-painted details. Also the relatively subdued color palettes of that art falls in line with what we want to explore, similar in saturation what you might see in the art of the Hudson River School. We also look at Icewind Dale portraits because the brushwork of all of the artists tended to have an enjoyable mix of loose and tight strokes.

Here's Sawyer's answer to a young man wanting to break into the the industry:

This question is from Aaron Patel. "How did you get your position as Lead Designer / Project Director? As someone who isnt too interested in game development, always cool to hear a bit of a career success story in a skill based industry". From My understanding you started as a Web Designer for Interplay?

Yeah. In the mid-90s, I started teaching myself HTML, JavaScript, and other tidbits of web development. Toward the end of college, I taught myself Flash 3.0 so I could do something fancy for a tattoo website (Steve's Tattoo in Madison, though thankfully they've replaced my crappy website since then). It turned out to be a key piece of tech knowledge when I applied for a web developer position at Interplay. It also helped that I knew a lot about AD&D and played it every week (sometimes multiple times a week). I got the job and wound up being the webmaster for Planescape: Torment and eventually Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights. I worked closely with the development team on Torment and when a position opened on the Icewind Dale design team, Feargus gave me a shot as a part-time junior designer. So in my case, I found a side-door into development via marketing/web.

Wednesday - October 24, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #28

by Myrthos, 12:48

Josh Sawyer brings us update 28 of Project Eternity.

Thanks to you, we're funded. Now the work begins. At this stage of the project, we are still in pre-production, so at Wednesday morning's team meeting we started talking about the passion-stirring topic of logistics. Before we start scripting quests and writing dialogues, we need to understand the full scope of what we're setting out to do. In some ways, the basics stay the same for us as they did a decade ago. But we have new problems to solve and we need to have them all worked out before we enter production.

The key elements we have been focusing on are:

The size and str ucture of the world - This game will be... large. And it will have two big cities, exploration areas, and a 15-level mega-dungeon. Ensuring that the world is planned properly requires examination of what has worked for us in the past and what hasn't. The original Baldur's Gate had a number of wilderness areas, but low density of content in many of those areas. Baldur's Gate II had much greater content density, but fewer wilderness/pure exploration areas. We'd like to make sure we have pure exploration areas while still maintaining good content density.

Dynamic environment integration - Animated objects, interactive objects, ambient visual effects, water, dynamic lights and shadows -- all of these elements can be featured even within a "2D" world. Our goal is to strike a good balance between visual fidelity, performance (including memory on disk), and the amount of time environment artists have to spend setting up their areas. We prefer dynamic sol utions that are relatively easy to author, as we want our environment artists to maximize their efficiency.

Lore and story - What we've developed so far has been the result of a small number of impromptu discussions and high-level efforts. Last week, we (including George -- thanks!) had our first meeting to increase development of the setting and story. We discussed major themes we'd like to explore, the order in which we'd each like to develop aspects of the lore and characters, and what elements we each were having trouble wrapping our heads around. Our immediate focus is on the central conflict of the story and the various factions that have a stake in it.

As the song goes, we've only just begun, but the team is excited and determined to make a game that lives up to your, and our, expectations. You've put a huge amount of trust in us, and we want to repay you with the best RPG we can.

Next week, we'll be talking about system desi gn and how we're approaching mechanics like class design, advancement, and the role of equipment. We're also working on fulfillment of some of the Kickstarter pledges and we'll have more info on that in the next few weeks. Finally, if you missed our D&D session from last week, we have it up on the YouTubes for your enjoyment!

Project Eternity - Interviews @ Sorcerer's Place, GI.biz

[Marceror] With all the content that you’ve committed to including in the game, is April 2014 still looking like a feasible release date?

[Adam] Yeah. In the beginning it may have seemed like we were a bit caught off guard by how quickly things were happening, but we did have a plan for the stretch goals ahead of time. The development team will be ramping up in size to tackle the increased scope of the game.

[Marceror] With all the content that you’ve committed to including in the game, is April 2014 still looking like a feasible release date?

[Adam] Yeah. In the beginning it may have seemed like we were a bit caught off guard by how quickly things were happening, but we did have a plan for the stretch goals ahead of time. The development team will be ramping up in size to tackle the increased scope of the game.

Q: Once Project Eternity comes out, do you have plans for more content?

Chris Avellone: Our hope with Eternity is that it's just the first in a series of installments, and then obviously we want to do the full expansion packs, and then extra content, just because we know we really enjoyed doing that for Fallout: New Vegas. We'd want to continue adding new content to the world. The first game is only one moderately sized nation in a much, much, much bigger world where a lot of other things are going on. There's plenty more room for games in that universe and that's what we'd like to do.

It's kind of nice because not all of that has to be done in the games; we can go out and look for graphic novel tie-ins and novel tie-ins and stuff. It is kind of cool to be able to pursue that on our own without having to go through a publisher, or accept the fact that whatever franchise we're with already has the avenues all covered. It's such a nice feeling.

Tuesday - October 16, 2012

Project Eternity - Updates, $4M Stretch Goal

by Dhruin, 21:59

Two new updates on Project Eternity since I last posted. Update #25 offers a new $350 "Loot Bag" tier that includes an AMD A10 processor (US only because of shipping), confirms Big City #2 and offer a recap of achieved goals and a little on the development of the temple entrance screenshot.

With 5 hours to go, currently at $3.68M (plus >$100k Paypal), Update #26 has the last stretch - it's a simple one:

$4m Stretch Goal - Enhance the Whole Game

OK! After much team deliberation we have one final ultimate stretch goal. At $4.0m we will be enhancing the whole game. We will use live instrumentation for the soundtrack, add developer in-game commentary, and use every dollar between $3.5m and $4m to enhance the game. Also at $4.0m Chris Avellone will be forced to play Arcanum.

Project Eternity - Update #24, Life and Death

Life and Death in the Dyrwood

For today's update, I was supposed to do a lore update, but I decided that I wanted to talk about a specific subject and how lore and mechanics tie into that subject. Today's subjects are LIFE AND DEATH. Project Eternity is a fantasy RPG inspired by several A/D&D-based settings in which death is, for those with means, a temporary setback (for the Nameless One, it's even less problematic). The priests of the Forgotten Realms run around with boatloads of cure x wounds spells, the ability to banish disease, and even the power to bring the dead back to life.

In Project Eternity, prospects are not so bright. And when death comes, some try to stay, some choose to go, but most people believe that once they make the trip to the other side, there is only one way back: to begin a new life.

Common MortalityProject Eternity's world is one with limited medicine and medical understanding. Unlike many fantasy settings, there is very little access to curative magic. Remedies for health problems often have only a palliative or placebo effect at best, owing their continued use more to folk beliefs and tradition than any basis in scientific methodology. Though soul-based magic has helped the great exploring cultures from suffering massive pandemics and has helped some individuals overcome illness over the long-term, there is no quick magical "cure" for disease or illness. Most people go through life and death in the ordinary way -- unless they put themselves in harm's way, that is.

Stamina and HealthIn Project Eternity's combat, players need to be concerned with two elements of a character's vitality: Stamina and Health. The majority of damage a character takes is subtracted from his or her Stamina. Stamina represents how much general abuse a character can take before falling unconscious. Characters lose it quickly and regain it relatively rapidly, even without assistance. Soul-based abilities are able to help replenish or regenerate Stamina and are often used on the battlefield to turn the tide of combat. If a character hits 0 Stamina, he or she is knocked out. Intervention from another character can bring an unconscious character back into a fight.

For players, the Health of their party members is a tether that makes them consider how far they are willing to venture from a safe resting spot. Though Health is typically lost at a lower rate, when the PC or a companion hits 0 Health, he or she is maimed (in standard play) or killed (in Expert mode or as an option in standard play). Magic may help mitigate damage to Health and slow the tide, but once characters have died (in Expert mode), there is no known magic that can bring them back.

Project Eternity - Information Thread @ Sorcerer's Place

Classes in Project Eternity are meant to provide a general framework for character types. Different classes excel in different areas, but the framework can be extended and elaborated on in a multitude of ways to create characters with unique capabilities. If you see a fighter, chances are good that he or she is going to be able to take a lot of damage, but that's about all you can be sure of. If you see a wizard, he or she probably has some hard-hitting spells that can cover a large area, but his potential list of capabilities is vast.

If you want to create a wizard who wears plate armor and hacks away with a broadsword from behind a heavily-enhanced arcane veil, we want to let you do that. If your idea of the perfect fighter is one who wears light armor and uses a variety of dazzling rapier attacks in rapid succession, we want to help you make that character. So it's good to think of Project Eternity's classes as being purpose-ready but not purpose-limited.

The campaign is about to hit the last day, with $3.24M on Kickstarter and >$85 on Paypal, which makes the 3.5M goal achievable with a final push.

Project Eternity - Interview @ GameBanshee

Buck: Will there be some sort of damage type system in play (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing), and what steps are you taking to ensure that all weapon types (two-handed, sword/shield, dual-wielding, and ranged) are balanced and, ultimately, viable pursuits?

Josh: I'm not sure if there will be or not. I don't want to introduce so many moving parts to the damage, weapons, and armor systems that we become unable to present player choices that are meaningful and coherent. That is, depending on how many factors the player is expected to analyze when selecting a weapon for any given task, we need to make sure that the range of choices the player can make feel like they have clear, solid benefits and drawbacks instead of coming across as a bunch of "mush".

The first step in ensuring that weapon types/combat styles are viable pursuits is saying, "All weapon types and combat styles must be viable pursuits." If that's your high-level goal, design decisions should always be framed in that context. If someone says, "Daggers are the bad weapons for characters who suck!" that clearly flies in the face of the stated goal.

I think some editions of AD&D have really struggled with this. The rules seem to want to structure weapons in a certain way that promotes trade-offs, but mechanics are in conflict and produce a bunch of choices that feel dead in the water outside of niche circumstances. If you ever look at a choice and say, "Obviously everyone should take this," or "I would never take this," there's probably something wrong with how they've been balanced.

And the IWD3 question answered by Feargus:

Buck: I know that Obsidian Entertainment owns the Icewind Dale franchise assets and that you've approached publishers in the past about the prospect of pursuing Icewind Dale III. Given the success of your Project Eternity Kickstarter, what are the odds that we may yet see an ID3 in the near future, crowd-funded or not? Hypothetically, what direction would you take a third entry in the series?

Feargus: You are correct, we approached Atari a number of times about doing Icewind Dale 3. We hope that with the success of Project Eternity that it might be possible to talk to Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast about those games again. However, our focus right now is Project Eternity. We would not want to start working on something like IWD3 soon, since we don’t want anything to compromise Project Eternity at all. If we were to do IWD3, I think we would continue the focus of what the IWD series was all about – a great dungeon crawling counterpoint to Baldur’s Gate and Torment.

Project Eternity - Update #23, $3.15M

by Dhruin, 11:16

Project Eternity has kicked up a new update as they push towards the end. As I write, Project Eternity is at $3.15M on Kickstarter plus another $75k+ on Paypal (40 hours left). Other than a wrap-up of events, the big announcement is a Double Fine-style documentary:

The big news for the day is that we are adding a documentary covering the development of Project Eternity.

After getting a lot of requests to do a documentary, like the Double Fine Adventure, we started looking into it a couple of weeks ago. We talked about it more last week and decided that we don’t have a visual history of one of our games, even after almost ten years as a company. We felt it was something we should just do and do it without it being a new stretch goal.

So, we are happy to announce that we are going to include a stream, download, or physical copy of the documentary in all of our Kickstarter reward tiers. At the $20/$25 level you will be able to stream it, at the $35 level you will be able to download it, and at the $140 level (and physical tiers above) we will include a DVD / Blu-ray.

Sunday - October 14, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #22, $2.94M

If you add Paypal, Project Eternity is probably just about to nudge $3.0M ($2.94 on Kickstarter alone). Yesterday, PC Gamer held a live chat and you can find some of the key answers here:

On the aumaua race:

“the other race we haven’t talked about yet are called the aumaua. they are larger than humans and are found in a lot of coastal and island areas. like orlans, they look somewhat… different, but they are still a bipedal race. we’re still working on their concepts (as we are with orlans), but we will show them when we feel they’re in a good place.” – Josh Sawyer

Yes, we will have these dialogs. They are a great deal of work, since it means writing two versions of every dialog in the game, but I am sure that our wonderful writers are up to it. I really want these dialogs too! I find it fun to replay the game with a low intelligence character, just to see how the NPC's react to my slow-witted attempts to help them.

And there we have it! Five questions answered from five sites. Again, thanks for your support of Obsidian and Project Eternity. There are just a few days left before the Kickstarter campaign is over and we enter full production of this game, and we are all very excited about the prospect of working on a classic CRPG again!

Thursday - October 11, 2012

Project Eternity - Lore, Big Stretch Goals, Screenshot!

by Dhruin, 22:40

In a huge update for Project Eternity as we head for home with 5 days to go, J.E. Sawyer has posted a large chunk of lore, a Digital Campaign Almanac addon, two big stretch goals and the first screenshot. Thanks to the various readers who wrote in about this!

A sample of the lore:

Aedyr - People from the expansive Aedyr Empire and its former colonies, Dyrwood and Readceras. Aedyr literally translates as "Many Deer", but means "People of the Deer", referring to a 2,500 year-old tribe that became a kingdom 600 years ago. It merged with the elven kingdom of Kulklin in 2399 AI. Among the Aedyr, there is no significant cultural divide between humans and elves. Because of their close contact and integration in spite of physiological differences (such as longer elven lifespans), their culture and legal system have developed a variety of unique concepts such as the haemneg, or ceremonial marriage. Ethnic Aedyr (mostly humans and elves) have fair skin and a variety of hair and eye colors, with blue and green being common. Among other cultures, Aedyr clothing is known for being relatively simple in construction and often using large, colorful striped or checkered patterns for accents.

The stretch goals are a full Stronghold at $3.0M and a "big city" at $3.5M:

Baldur's Gate and Athkatla are big cities. Spanning multiple large maps with a ton of interiors, characters and quests, big cities are a lot of fun. Like strongholds, they also take a lot of work to do well. We're going to have one big city in Project Eternity. Would you like two? If you take us on an exciting adventure to $3.5 Million, we will take you on an exciting adventure to another big city.

...and an "environment screenshot" - head over to read their approach to the art (link to 1920x1080 version).

Project Eternity - $2.6M, Adventurer's Hall Unlocked

by Dhruin, 12:57

Project Eternity has passed $2.6M on Kickstarter (and when you add Paypal, is well on the way to $2.7M) unlocking the Adventurer's Hall. There are also new addons and a summary of every reward tier if you've lost track of what you get. Paladins and Chanters are the next stretch goal, then George Ziets after that:

Paladins are extremely devoted, often fanatical, soldiers who have pledged themselves to a chosen cause, combining the zeal of a priest with the ascetic discipline of a monk. They have founded many elite fighting forces, from the original Darcozzi Paladini, a two thousand year-old order of palace guards, to the fledgling Fellows of St. Waidwen Martyr, zealous defenders of the Godhammer pilgrim trail. Often found at the vanguard of many conflicts, paladins are natural leaders and have the ability to quickly assist their allies with targeted commands. A paladin's commands can stave off impending death, overcome fatigue, or hasten the charge to close breached defenses. And though they are not always pledged to the service of a god or gods, paladins are so singularly focused on their chosen cause that their souls are continually creating a wellspring of spiritual energy from which they can blast groups of foes in their immediate vicinity. Despite their often stoic presence and explosive combat style, paladins work best alongside allies. When isolated, they can be vulnerable, especially against singular powerful foes.

Chanters can be found in almost any culture, but are most often seen in communities with a strong oral tradition. They are repositories of folk knowledge and common wisdom, tellers of tall tales and hallowed legends. Though chanters have a bit of minor talent in traditional arts of combat and soul-based magic, their true power lies in their chants. Chanters construct chants from individual iconic phrases and rhyming couplets they have memorized from hundreds of stories and poems, creating a chain of magical effects that plays out over time. While chanters do use the power of their souls to work their magic, chants are exhortations to the unconscious memory of wayward souls and the diffused spiritual energy of the world. That is, ambient spirits respond to the evocation of ancient, common story elements and play their part in reconstructing the chanter's tales. While a chanter's magic may seem modest compared to that of a wizard or a priest, chanters are able to recite their chants while occupied with other activities, making them extremely versatile.

Wednesday - October 10, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #18, George Ziets Stretch Goal

by Dhruin, 10:38

If, like me, you're a fan of George Ziets' work on Mask of the Betrayer (and other games) this latest Project Eternity stretch goal for $2.8M is the most exciting so far. There are also new class goals, new addons and new rewards:

We are happy to announce two more classes for the 2.7m stretch goal. With your pledges we now have Barbarians and Ciphers as playable classes, and now we would like to add Paladins and Chanters to round out our class selection for Project Eternity, bringing the class total to 11. [...]

It’s our pleasure to introduce our next stretch goal of George Ziets at $2.8m – with your help, we’ll be able to enlist the skills of George Ziets in shaping Project Eternity. For those not familiar with George’s work, he was the creative lead and core writer behind the acclaimed Mask of the Betrayer - the first expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2. George leant his talents to many of Obsidian’s other games including Fallout: New Vegas.

Tuesday - October 09, 2012

Project Eternity - $2.5M - New Classes Unlocked

by Dhruin, 21:40

Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter has ticked past $2.5M, unlocking the Barbarian and Cipher classes - next stop is the Adventurer's Hall at $2.6M. Only seven days to go!

At $2.6M, we will add an Adventurer's Hall to the world. In the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood, adventurers and mercenaries from across the world are often employed as personal bodyguards, elite security, or salvage (plunder) teams that venture into the forgotten corners of Eír Glanfath. A lot of the folks who hang out as such places are robbers and miscreants, but reliable agents can be found and employed with a bit of patience.

What does this mean for you? It means that if you don't like a companion, or if you don't like any of our companions, you won't be cut off from having characters of their classes. Over time, you can build your own custom parties to play through the game. If you want a party of monks or all casters, this gives you the ability to do it within the game while still maintaining the pacing of the standard PC + companions play style.

Project Eternity - What PCGamer Knows

Non-combat skills will be significant

The core four uses for non-combat skills presented by Obsidian are learning new things, traveling around the world, getting new items, and interacting with companions. Some examples given include the classic lockpicking and crafting, as well as some more novel concepts like being able to travel around the overworld with less chance of hostile encounters. The devs have also asserted that non-combat skills will not draw from the same pool of character points as combat ones, so you should never have to choose between being a better fighter or being better at something else. We’ve also been assured that players who use non-combat skills to bypass encounters will get the same amount of experience as those who choose to duke it out.

Monday - October 08, 2012

Project Eternity - Update #17, New $165 Tier, Expansion Revealed

In Project Eternity's Update #17, Feargus Urquhart announces a new $165 tier that includes a copy of Wasteland 2, as well as revealing expansion plans. The mega dungeon continues to grow and more:

Personally, we are incredibly thankful to him and for the second wave of Kickstarter attention he brought with Wasteland 2. But, Brian hasn’t stopped being the great guy that he is, and so, he’s helping us out by letting us add Wasteland 2 as a reward at our higher tiers. So, what tiers will that be? A lot of you have asked for a digital tier after $110, so we are adding a $165 Digital Only Tier. That means Wasteland 2 will get added to this new $165 tier and all the tiers above.

What we are also doing is adding the first expansion pack for the game to the $165 Tier (and above). The expansion will come out approximately six months after Project Eternity is released. That’s right, it’s not DLC, but a real honest to God RPG expansion pack. We don’t have the details on the Expansion yet, but you can bet it will be what you’d expect from an Infinity Engine game expansion.

Project Eternity - $2.4M

Barbarians come from many of the more remote cultures found across the world. In the Dyrwood, they are commonly found among Glanfathan elf communities. They are distinguished from fighters by their recklessness, ferocity, and their predilection to substitute raw aggression for discipline. Barbarians are a challenge to deal with on a battlefield, though they are vulnerable to exhaustion if they don't pace themselves.

Ciphers are uncommon and often misunderstood individuals with extraordinary mental abilities. Like wizards and priests, they have many talents that draw directly from their souls, but ciphers have the unique ability to peer through the spiritual energy of the world to manipulate other souls. While wizards use complex formulae in large tomes and priests tap into the passion of their faith, ciphers are able to operate directly through the power of their minds... and yours.

Saturday - October 06, 2012

Project Eternity - Pets, Mod Support, Combat Answers

The 16th update for Project Eternity brings news of an optional pet for >$50 backers, some new high-end rewards and some possible light at the end of the mod tunnel:

Mod Support

From Neverwinter Nights 2 to Fallout: New Vegas, we've enjoyed supporting the mod community, and we are continuing that with Project Eternity. It is awesome to see how you extend the worlds we make.

To make getting mods easy, we are excited to announce that our friends at the Nexus will be the official spot to download Project Eternity mods once the game is released. They have been a great host for mods for our past games, and we want to continue the trend with the Project Eternity Nexus. Check out the Nexus Network at www.nexusmods.com.

Our plan is to release our file-format information and expose as much of the data in the game as possible for you to extend and edit. We traditionally do not "hard-code" numbers so that our designers, and you, have the power to easily change and iterate on RPG data. We also plan on releasing localization tools to let communities around the world create localized versions for languages we are not translating Project Eternity into.

As we get more familiar with Unity during production, we will be extending Project Eternity even more for mod makers. Look forward to announcements in the months ahead as we make further progress and can provide you with more information about tools and mod support.

Kaaaboom asks...Hi Tim! I'm curious how the close combat in P:E will turn out. Will the melee of P:E encompass stuff like reach weapons, opportunity attacks, flanking, grappling, charging, prone/standing-modes and so forth?

Yes, we are looking to include many of these features into our close combat system. Specifically, opportunity attacks and flanking are definitely in, as well as charging. We're not sure about reach weapons yet (we need to figure out if that attribute on a weapon will be worthwhile enough in combat and will supportable with the appropriate UI), and while we will support prone positions, you won't be able to attack while prone because the animations involved are too different from attacks while standing that we would have to make every animation twice, once for standing and once for prone. This limitation also means that grappling abilities will not be included. There are too many new animations needed and special case limitations that apply, e.g. how does a human grapple a centaur or a dragon or an ooze?).

Friday - October 05, 2012

Project Eternity - Interviews @ RPS, IndieRPGs

by Dhruin, 23:09

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has interviewed Chris Avellone about Project Eternity, asking why they went with fantasy, innovation and more:

RPS: Why opt for a fantasy setting? I mean, gaming has quite a few of them. How will you set your mythology apart – as opposed to simply being another world of orcs and elves and dwarves and totally-not-hobbits?

Avellone: The type of races and concept art that’s been revealed for Eternity we hope display our commitment to showcasing seemingly-traditional races with unusual gear and traits – including the fact our women characters wear… appropriate armor. In addition to the more easily recognizable races, we have a number of specialized races as well, including the god-touched races and even more unusual races we intend to unveil later. In addition, the technology level and the concept of souls puts a further twist on the races and classes of the world in an interesting way.

RPS: Black Isle’s RPGs included all sorts of amazing, totally optional details. For instance, I always got a kick out of Fallout 2′s idiot dialogue options and how much thought went into that system. Will Project Eternity have any surprises along those lines?

Avellone: Yes, we want to examine the dialogue mechanics, and one thing we’re going to do is low-intelligence options – either based on Intelligence or a trait – and have the sequences play out differently according to the player’s intellect. As a narrative designer, I enjoy writing interactions like that, and I had a blast with the stupid options in F2 in Vault City and New Reno.

You recently mentioned that you were tempted to crowd-fund a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment. It wasn’t long thereafter that Obsidian launched Project Eternity on Kickstarter. Is this the aforementioned spiritual successor?

No, Project: Eternity is something different. We had considered doing a Planescape: Torment successor, and that seemed like a waste considering the powerhouses we already had in the studio – why not have them come together and collaborate on something? In my opinion, that would actually be more interesting to the public than a Planescape title, and that seems to have proved itself out.

Thursday - October 04, 2012

Project Eternity - $2.3M, Hardcore Modes Unlocked

Remember the Heart of Fury challenge mode from the Icewind Dale series? How about Ironman Mode from Temple of Elemental Evil? Hardcore mode from Fallout: New Vegas ring a bell? At $2.3M, we've got 'em all and they can all be turned on at the same time... Ouch! Also, Godlike races come at this level. Check out Update #9 for more details!